I installed my first SQL 2012 server recently and came across an interesting issue I thought I’d share. When you connect to a SQL 2012 server using SSMS from SQL 2008 R2 and view the database options page, you do not see options for the database compatibility level.
Here is a look at the compatibility drop down for the model database on a SQL 2012 server using SQL 2008 R2 SSMS:
And here is the same screen for the same database using SQL 2012 SSMS:
