SQL Server Management Studio 17 cannot find one or more components

Question

I have just upgraded to Visual Studio 2017 Professional and SSMS 17.

I can access my servers and databases through Visual Studio 17's SQL Server Object Explorer but when I try to execute SSMS outside of the VS IDE it tells me "Cannot find one or more components.  Please reinstall the application".  I have reinstalled SSMS 17 twice and still cannot run it.

The SSMS executable is at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\140\Tools\Binn\ManagementStudio\Ssms.exe.

I get the same problem on another machine running VS 2017 Community.

What is causing the message "Cannot find one or more components.  Please reinstall the application" when I try to execute SSMS outside of Visual Studio? What do I need to do to execute SSMS outside of the VS IDE?

Answer 1

I had similar problem and in my case it was due to a corrupt Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Isolated) which SSMS 17 requires to run outside the VS IDE.

To fix this, I had to do the following:

1. Uninstall Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (both the x64 and x86). This is to ensure that step (2) will succeed as the repair process of the prerequisites might fail in some cases if newer versions have been installed.
2. Repair Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Isolated) (or reinstall using https://download.microsoft.com/download/C/9/C/C9CA8400-20AA-4488-92A3-F3F6D978AD81/vs_isoshell.exe).
3. Reinstall Microsoft Visual C++ 2017 Redistributable (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=746572 and https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=746571) if removed earlier.

Answer 2

Here is a quick fix for cannot find one or more components in SQL Server

Follow these steps:

1. Run Add or remove programs (Type into run box)

2. Repair Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Shell (Isolated) (Modify > Repair)

The installation process will report that it was unable to install some of the Visual C++ executables as they are already present; this message can be ignored, the repair still fixes the problem reported in the question.