A valid destination folder for the install could not be determined when installing SQL Server Management Studio 2016

Question

Whilst installing SSMS 2016, I get the following error and setup terminates:

SQL Server 2016 Common Files: A valid destination folder for the install could not be determined.

I've tried the following solutions:

1. Delete all files in %TEMP% folder
2. Check that BootstrapDir exists in HKLM

The above 2 options where suggested on the MS sites.

I have administrator privileges and I must also add that I have already installed SSMS 2016 on this machine but I removed it to clean up some space.

Any ideas what I might look for to solve this problem?

Answer 1

This is the exact error message I was getting:

BootstrapperEngineDataModel.OnError: Burn engine encountered error. PackageId: sql_ssms_extensions_msp_x86, ErrorType: WindowsInstaller, ErrorCode: 1807, Data: 1807, ErrorMessage: A valid destination folder for the install could not be determined., UIHint: 0
MainViewModel.AddFailedCondition: Error: Hotfix 2164 for  sql_ssms_extensions (KB3182270): A valid destination folder for the install could not be determined.
MainViewModel.OnPackageError: setup failed for packageId: sql_ssms_extensions_msp_x86, package: Hotfix 2164 for  sql_ssms_extensions (KB3182270), errorCode: 1807, errorMessage: A valid destination folder for the install could not be determined.

And the solution to fix this is:

Start regedit and go to (or search for BootstrapDir in registry) :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Bootstrap

In my computer, the BootstrapDir is pointed to :

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Setup Bootstrap\

I changed that to :

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\130\Setup Bootstrap\

Then try to reinstall again, it works on my machine.