Error when trying to install SSMS 18.4 version

Question

Not sure if anyone has came across this problem but any help is greatly appreciated.

I have SSMS 18.0 Preview 4 installed on my local machine. Whenever I am trying to install any new released version of SSMS I get below error.

Error: The Generally Available (GA) version of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) v18.0 cannot be installed because a pre-release version of SSMS is installed on your computer. Uninstall the pre-release version of SSMS from 'Add/Remove Programs' in the Control Panel and run SSMS setup again.

SO i followed the Error and completely removed Preview version. And when i am running new SSMS set up file it still showing same error though i do not have Preview version installed on. I restarted machine after uninstall as well.

Though in error image it says set up is blocked but when i run the SSMS 18 prview 4 it doesn't give me this error and take me to install click.

Any thoughts or solution will highly helpful.

Thank you.

Answer 1

If you encounter this error with the reason being "ssms is currently running", check the file name of the setup exe. If it's ssms.exe, rename it to anything else, I suspect the setup is detecting itself as being management studio based on file name. This worked for me.

Answer 2

Just FYI... This tool helped me to remove the SSMS for SSAS and SSRS which wasn't showing up during regular uninstall.

Tried the MS removal tool and it was showing 4 different SSMS which i uninstalled and finally i was able to install SSMS 18.4.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/help/17588/windows-fix-problems-that-block-programs-being-installed-or-removed

Thank you Dedmon Dai from Microsoft Support. https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/sqlserver/en-US/c4e73534-8371-4557-b653-25f87b1c9cbe/ssms-18-installation-error?forum=sqldatabaseengine

Answer 3

In my case, I was getting the error "SSMSCurrentlyRunning = SSMS is currently running. Please close any open instances of SSMS and run this installer again."

I downloaded the file again and it worked.

Answer 4

I had this problem, reinstalled version 18 public preview 7 on https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2019/03/01/sql-server-management-studio-18-0-public-preview-7-released/ and then uninstalled and installed the updated version.