SQL Server Management Studio 18.10 fresh install on new server, DdsShapes.dll problem

Question

SQL Server Management Studio 18.10 fresh install on new server, DdsShapes.dll problem

Duncan 56

Activation context generation failed for "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18\Common7\IDE\Ssms.exe". Dependent Assembly "DdsShapes.dll,processorArchitecture="X86",type="win32",version="1.0.0.0"" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

ERROR Event ID 33 SideBySide

What went wrong? New Server 2019, fresh install of SQL Server 2017 with Advanced Services, installed SQL Server Management Studio 18.10 -> got this error.

2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Duncan 56

The correct solution is:

uninstall SQL Server Management Studio 18.10, cause its installation process is bugged.
install SQL Server Management Studio 18.9.2 (15.0.18386.0 / July 15, 2021)
re-install SQL Server Management Studio 18.10

No errors in Event log and DdsShapes.dll is now present as 18.9.2 is installing this dll, which is NOT present in 18.10.

Someone should drop a note on the SSMS homepage that 18.10 is NOT suitable for fresh installations, only for upgrades.

Ronen Ariely 15,206 Reputation points

2022-02-05T22:13:26.407+00:00

We cannot drop a note if we cannot reproduce the issue and we have no log file about the issue and no trace log or any information apart to a vague post in a forum written by someone unfamiliar to us :-)

With that said, you can drop a note and it can be very useful if you can also help in monitor the issue
CathyJi-MSFT 22,396 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2022-02-07T08:00:54.61+00:00

Hi @Duncan ,

> Someone should drop a note on the SSMS homepage that 18.10 is NOT suitable for fresh installations, only for upgrades.

Thanks for your sharing. But I did a fresh installation for SSMS 18.10, it works well in my environment. I could not reproduce your issue.
Danny Stille 0 Reputation points

2023-02-03T13:23:20.8266667+00:00

The server I have this problem was not caused by a new install.

Answer 2

Ronen Ariely 15,206

Hi,

(1) Do have Visual Studio installed on the same machine?

(2) Make sure that you install the SSMS as administrator - restart machine and try again

(3) Did you saw and try to do what the error message suggests Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis?

The sxstrace.exe is a small utility which assists in diagnosing side-by-side errors. It should run in the background while you try to the action and it collect information. In your case, you start it before you try to install the SSMS -> install the SSMS (until succeed or fails) -> stop the sxstrace.exe and collect the information from the log it wrote.

create new folder to store the log: C:\RonenArielyTraceTest
run the utility: sxstrace.exe Trace -logfile:C:\RonenArielyTraceTest\RonenArielyTraceTest.log
try to install the SSMS again (the sxstrace utility should collect information in the background)
stop the sxstrace depend on how you started it (in powershell you simply click Enter or you might need to run sxstrace.exe stoptrace)
The log file is a binary file which hard to parse manually so we will use the same tool to parse the file. execute the command: sxstrace.exe Parse -logfile:C:\RonenArielyTraceTest\RonenArielyTraceTest.log -outfile:C:\RonenArielyTraceTest\RonenArielyTraceTest.txt

Duncan 56 Reputation points

2022-02-05T17:55:19.303+00:00

No, no Visual Studio installed. It's a Server and not a Developer Workstation. Just installed the SQL Management Studio to configure a database.
New Server 2019 installed, setup IIS and installed ASP.NET and .NET 4.8. Then I installed SQL Server 2017 with Advanced Services, upgraded it to CU28 for SQL 2017, then installed the 18.10 Management Studio to setup the Database. Nothing more, no other software involved. So, there must be something wrong with the installation process of SQL Management Studio 18.10.
The installation was successfully completed and I can start the SQL Management Studio. Nothing wrong, but I noticed in the Event Log ERROR Event ID 33 SideBySide during the installation of Management Studio.
Just want to inform MS that there is something wrong with the installation process.
Sorry, don't have any time for debugging. It's the job of MS to get this done. Just want to drop a note. Maybe I should have installed 18.0 first and then upgrade to 18.10. But there was no notice that I should install 18.0 first on the SSMS homepage.
If I had not looked at the logs, I wouldn't have noticed that there went 'something' wrong at all.
Erland Sommarskog 121.9K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2022-02-05T18:37:59.147+00:00

If you want to log a bug report, a better site would be https://feedback.azure.com/d365community/forum/04fe6ee0-3b25-ec11-b6e6-000d3a4f0da0. This is more a for for peer-to-peer support. The way your original post was phrased, we assume that you were not able to run SSMS at all - unfortunately, those posts are not uncommon.

Then again, if you are not prepared to run sxstrace and attach a log, maybe you should also skip reporting the bug. Even this was a fresh install, it may still be something in your environment that caused this message. If you only submit what you have said here, a Microsoft engineer may try it out anyway. But if the error message does not reappear, that will be the end of the line.

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SQL Server Management Studio 18.10 fresh install on new server, DdsShapes.dll problem

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