Connect to SQL Server 2012 from an Windows XP client
The version of Management Studio you should be using is SQL Server 2012. Sadly - as you've confirmed - this is not supported on Windows XP. I don't think this is a wholly artificial restriction - I think even if you could figure out some way to hack the 2012 tools into installing, you'd have other behavioral issues to deal with.
So, you have a couple of options (and I understand that these may or may not be practical):
- Upgrade to a new version of Windows (and if you need XP for compatibility reasons, use XP mode). You won't get a whole lot of sympathy from Microsoft running a 10-year old operating system.
- Remote to the SQL Server 2012 machine and use its copy of Management Studio.
- Deal with / ignore the exception (though you may be missing other functionality too).
You can try upgrading SSMS to the SQL Server 2008 R2 version. A client that I had I was using SSMS 2008 R2 to connect to SQL 2012 without issue. It doesn't support the new features but it'll work.
The best option would be to upgrade to a new OS which is under support (I say as I boot up my Windows XP VM to do some stuff).