>>>>>>>>Hi,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>I have SQL Server Management Studio 2005 on my PC (this is what says on the Connect to Server window). Can I use it to connect to SQL Server 2008? TIA.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Yes, I believe you can. BTW, if you have IP address you can connect directly from your SQL Server - no need for VPN.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Thank you for the answer to my SQL 2005 - SQL 2008 question. 'William is right; the customer told me that I must have VPN connected in order to connect to the SQL Server. The customer is very sensitive to their security.
>>>>>
>>>>>If you're connected via VPN, then you will be using SSMS installed there, right? Do they have SSMS 2005 installed?
>>>>
>>>>No. The customer told me that I should have SSMS install on my computer connecting to their SQL Server when I am connected via VPN. Does it make sense?
>>>
>>>As others have said you should be able to use SSMS on your machine to access the remote SQL server over VPN. But why not install the latest SSMS on your machine - it's free and will work with all versions of SQL server....
>>
>>I will look for download of the latest version of SSMS. Do you happened to have the version number or name for it? Thank you.
>
>I'm using SSMS Express 2008 R2. (version 10.50.1617.0) but I don't know if that is the latest version.
>Also, as Sergey pointed out, only SSMS Express is free - but, AFAICS, it's sufficient for most purposes....

I did not know that. I have not done anything with the Express edition, having had SQL Server Pro as part of MSDN subscriptions for eons, but that's pretty darned good value to give SSMS away. Like most of us here, I don't need much if any of the DBA stuff so Express SSMS would probably do the job for me.