Vanishing Save As Dialog in Management Studio 2008

Question

This originally felt like it could be a problem with MMC or Windows 7, but I've tried other MMCs and it only happens with SQL Server Management Studio.

Under the following conditions:

• Run Management Studio 2008 as an administrator.
• Connect to any SQL server instance (we're using Windows authentication and the administrative account has sysadmin privileges in the instance).
• Script an object to a new query window (I scripted a CREATE and DROP for a user table)
• Run Save As...
• Click on the tree dropdown at the top of the dialog that appears.

 

The Save As dialog vanishes and all of the UI elements in the MDI frame stop responding. 

• The dialog is nowhere to be found.
• You can do things in the docked windows (e.g. object explorer), even close them, but you can't edit the scripts and you can't exit Management Studio.
• If you try to close the application through the system menu, you get a dialog that says "Microsoft SQL Server management studio cannot shut down because a modal dialog is active."   The only way to close Management Studio is to kill it using Task Manager.
• This does not happen if you run Management studio as a non-administrator.  You can use RunAs with a different non-administrative user and the problem does not appear.  I also logged into the desktop with the administrative account and the above steps did not cause the problem if I didn't elevate with "run as administrator".

 

Answer 1

Hi Spencer Simpson,

Could you please check that the lasted service packages have been applied to the Window 7 operating system and SQL Server 2008? 

Get the latest service pack for your version of Windows:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/downloads/service-packs.

Get the latest service pack for your version of SQL Server: http://www.sqlsecurity.com/FAQs/SQLServerVersionDatabase/tabid/63/Default.aspx

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Best Regards,
Stephanie Lv

Forum Support
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help. If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [e-mail].

Answer 2

Nope, didn't solve the problem.   My WSUS server says that my computer has all applicable updates installed, and that SQL Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 2 is "Installed".  The only component of SQL Server 2008 R2 installed is Management Studio Express (10.50.1617.0). 

Answer 3

Just today, Automatic Updates decided that SQL Server 2008 (not R2) Service pack 2 was needed, and so that got installed, and now Management Studio is up to 10.50.2500.0.    Same problem, however.

Answer 4

I am having the same problem - Windows 7 operating system, with SQL Server 2008 R2 Management Studio installed.  I am fully patched.

Answer 5

I have the same setup and the same problem. Has anyone heard anything new on this issue?

Answer 6

Update:

Automatic Updates installed SQL Server 2008 Service pack 3 but didn't change the build number of the management studio.

The update did not solve the problem and I'm not surprised. This is more likely a problem with Windows 7 rather than SQL Server; unfortunately, this is the only place I can get it to happen.

Answer 7

So I guess Microsoft is just choosing to ignore this error and its customers who are unproductively losing work as they continue to encounter it?

Answer 8

I too am having this issue with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) on Windows 7 Pro.

It's odd to me that the dialog itself has no unique presence in the task manager.  The desired workaround would be to in some way recall or re-establish this dialog.  Not sure if it's commdlg.dll or other library causing the issue but has only started happening after about a month of usage on my system. (2.5GHz i5 proc, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 Ver 6.1.7601 32-bit, .Net ver 2.0.50727.5466, IE ver 9.0.8112.16421, SSMS 10.50.2500.0)

Answer 9

We keep Windows pretty aggressively patched, and one Windows Update or another has cleared up the problem.   It could have been any one of hundreds of updates, in the Win7 kernel, the shell, the .NET framework, or even SQL.