How to migrate SQL Server aliases easily

Definitely, in my daily DBA life many times I had to complete the migration of hundreds of SQL Server aliases without wasting much time. The DBAs always have the need of carrying out administrative tasks quickly and easily, and in this sense today I am going to share with you a technique of how to migrate SQL Server aliases.

To begin with, think of having three aliases in the database server. You can see them using SQL Server Manager Configuration tool.

The technique is to use Export/Import option of the system registry. Be cautious and do not try to modify other things. All the keys of the SQL Server aliases can be found for a x64 system in the following path:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\ConnectTo

And whether you have SQL Server 32-bit on x64 then the keys are found here:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSSQLServe‌​r\Client\ConnectTo

Now, once the path was found we need to navigate to it and right click on it to select Export option to export the branch of aliases to a regedit file (.reg). Finally, copy the file to the new server and then using File->Import option you can import them into the registry of the new database server. That is all for now. Let me know any remarks you may have.