SSMS Installation

Question

I have tried multiple things but not able to install ssms

Answer 1

This answer assumes that you really want to install SQL Server. (And, yes, it is a canned response. You are not the first to ask.)

First things first: what hardware do you have? If you have an ARM processor, beware that SQL Server does not support ARM. The rest of the answer assumes that you have a regular x64 processor.

My belief is that this is an error that occurs mainly in the situation when a user tried to install SQL Server and it failed with some error. The user might have tried some random cleanup and made renewed attempts. Because the cleanup was incomplete, Setup now fails with another error than it did originally.

Could this apply to you? Or did this happen on the first attempt? (If it does apply to you, don't feel bad. I think it is quite a natural path to take.)

Here is a link to an article that can help you to clean up properly: https://www.sql-easy.com/learn/how-to-uninstall-sql-server/. I have not tried it myself, but I learnt about it from a user who was in a similar situation as yours, and who was able to install SQL Server successfully after following the article.

If you are on Windows 11, be sure to read the article Troubleshoot errors related to system disk sector size greater than 4 KB before you try again. It discusses a known issue where Windows 11 reports a disk-sector size that SQL Server chokes on. This could be the cause for your original failure. Check out this article, and if needed apply the workarounds it proposes.

If you make a new attempt after cleanup, and it still fails, you find log files in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\nnn\Setup Bootstrap\Log with one folder per attempt. (nnn is a three-digit number that depends on the version of SQL Server you are trying to install). The files of most interest are summary.txt, detail.txt and any file with ERRORLOG in the name. (The latter only appears if Setup came as far as trying to start SQL Server). Feel free to attach these to the thread here.

Answer 2

If you want to install SSMS, SQL Server Management Studio, a good start would be to actually run the Setup for SSMS. In the screenshot, you are trying to install SQL Server.

And, indeed if you want to use SQL Server on your personal laptop, you need to install both.

On the other hand, if you are in a corporate environment and there is a common SQL Server instance for development, you only need SSMS to connect to SQL Server so that you can run queries.

The download for SSMS is found here.

If you mean to install SQL Server, I will post that as a separate answer.