Error Installing SQL Server Management Studio18.4 - Cannot be installed because a Pre-Release is installed.

Richard 1 Reputation point
2022-11-04T07:40:39.837+00:00

Hi, I'm trying to install SSMS 18.4, but its giving me an error: "cannot be installed because a pre-release has been installed.

Ive made sure I've removed any installation of SSMS from the control panel.

Ive run the removal tool as suggested in this thread. (It doesn't actually list anythng related to SSMS)

https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c4e73534-8371-4557-b653-25f87b1c9cbe/ssms-18-installation-error?forum=sqltools

Ive restarted a few times... I've also checked the registry for any SSMS entries, and there are none.

So I'm a bit stuck.. If someone can help..

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A family of Microsoft relational database management and analysis systems for e-commerce, line-of-business, and data warehousing solutions.
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  1. CathyJi-MSFT 21,091 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2022-11-08T07:47:39.093+00:00

    Hi @Richard ,

    Did you try to install the latest version of SSMS 18.12.1? You can get this from this MS link.

    If it is not work, please try the solution from this similar thread.

    >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.

    If It is still not work, please check your SSMS setup log(such as %TEMP%\SSMSSetup\SSMS-Setup-ENU_20190430231104.log) to find more related error message and share them to us.

    If you cannot find more information from SSMS setup log, please use process monitor to capture the SSMS installation process, then find the useful error information from this.

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

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