Error message on launching Management Studio (and other tools in SQL 2005)

We have seen many customers call in for this issue - launching SQL Server 2005 Tools (like Management Studio, Business Intelligence Studio) throws:

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately.
Input string was not in a correct format.

The above error message or its variations are caused primarily due to non-empty or incorrect value in the registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelInternationalsPositiveSign

We have documented this issue and its resolution in KB 919236.

Cheers!

 

POSTED BY : Sanchan Saxena