Randolph West clears up a few misconceptions about SQL Server Management Studio 21’s installer:
There’s been some confusion lately about the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) installation process for version 21.
Before Microsoft released SSMS 21, you had to download an installer file for each release (ever since SSMS was released as a standalone product with v16). This file eventually grew to be over 1GB, which is a significant download, especially in the case of a minor update.
With SSMS 21, Microsoft changed SSMS to use the Visual Studio installer.
Read on to learn more about the ramifications of this decision. And there is still a way to install SSMS 21 in a secure environment without outbound internet access, although it does require a few more steps in addition to “download executable and then deploy executable to other machines.”