When I try to launch SQL Server Management Studio 18, I get a Windows chime and no other response or error messages. Initially, after installing SSMS 18 and SQL Server 17, both worked fine for a day until I installed XAMPP when the issues started.
The following did not work:
- Repairing installation
- Uninstalling & reinstalling
- Deleting 18.0 (version) folders from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server using Regedit.exe
I eventually got it working again after uninstalling XAMPP, then uninstalling and reinstalling SSMS and SQL Server, but as soon as I installed MAMP as an alternative the same problem arose again.
The state of the MAMP/XAMPP server processes seems to have no influence on the problem. It is purely related to the fact that local server environment was installed. Surely if this is due to a port or a .NET issue, there should give me an appropriate error msg instead of the non-descript chime.
Any help will be appreciated as I have trawled the forums to no avail and need to host a testing environment on my machine.
EDIT: I found the following, which I suspect relates to the same problem: https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/37502512-ssms2018-installed-but-will-not-run
This has supposedly been fixed in SSMS 18.1. I added the interim Microsoft workaround for SSMS 18.0 in the answer below.