Management Studio overwriting instead of inserting text while typing

Peter Schmitz

Administrator
Staff member
For some reason, all of a sudden my SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) started behaving somewhat odd; where other applications behaved properly, allowing me to type and the text simply being inserted, SSMS was overwriting text.

I tested multiple other applications (Visual Studio, Notepad), but all functioned normally, so clearly this was some issue on the SSMS side.

As it turns out, within SSMS, you can actually define the behavior of the text editor, and alternate between Insert and Overwrite. The place to find it is somewhat obscure, though, and it took me far longer than I want to admit to find it.

In the status bar, all the way at the bottom of the SSMS window, look for "OVR" (OVR for Overwrite):

upload_2020-3-24_11-40-28.png


Double-click that, and the value will change to "INS" (Insert):

upload_2020-3-24_11-37-7.png


And you will have fixed your problem.
 
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