xantha.org

We recently got new development machines at work. 64-bit, Windows 7. We’re primarily a Windows shop. Most new development is in .NET and the databases are all various versions of SQL Server.

We recently did a big upgrade from SQL2000 to SQL2008, so we get to use the shiny new SQL Server 2008 Management Studio which does a whole lot of things that the SQL2k tools did not do well (though I still miss certain things and have all of the tools installed).

Well, Visual Studio 2010 just came out and since we were installing new software on our new development machines anyway, we decided we may as well bite the bullet, install it and convert our applications to VS2010. This went fairly well for me, though I know one of my teammates had to rewrite a lot of code for VS2010.

Except. There’s always an except, isn’t there?

For some reason, we are now getting an error when we try to launch the super-useful Job Activity Monitor in SQL Server Management Studio 2008. It was working prior to installing Visual Studio 2010. It is no longer working. When we attempt to launch it, it throws this error:

Cannot show requested dialog.

Additional Information:
Unable to execute requested command.
jobs (SqlManagerUI)

There are a couple of mentions of this error here and here.

I believe what happened is that VS2010 installs (either by default or we selected it) some SQL tools as part of its install. Those tools whack out the preexisting full version of SSMS either by replacing DLLs it uses or registry tweaks or something else.

In attempts to fix it, one of my teammates attempted to run a “repair” of SQL Server Management Studio 2008 which did not solve the problem. Then he uninstalled just the “Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (64 bit)” program through Add/Remove Programs and re-installed it… which also did not work.

I went through and uninstalled everything listed as “SQL Server 2008″ in my programs including but not limited to: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (64 bit), Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Books Online (English), Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Policies, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Setup Support Files (English), Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Data-Tier Application Framework, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Data-Tier Application Project, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Objects, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Objects (x64), Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Transact SQL Language Service, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Setup Support Files.

I rebooted (though it did not suggest I do so) and re-installed SQL Server 2008 completely. My job activity monitor was again functioning properly. So, install Visual Studio 2010 first, then install SSMS if you want to have a functional SSMS Job Activity Monitor.

[aside: I installed SQL Server 2008 SP1 afterward and the Job Activity Monitor still works.]

I have no idea if this is going to re-break when I install the next VS update or if this is all bad practice but it is working for me.