I previously wrote a blog post about using PowerShell and the registry editor to modify the default installation path for SQL Server Management Studio here.
Since then, I’ve tried a few alternative approaches, and now I’m back with a new method for installing SQL Server Management Studio via the command line to a user-specified location.
Steps to do so are as follows
1. Download latest version of SSMS from this link
2. Press Win+Q key to open search on your computer and type in cmd you will see below screen
Click on Run as administrator.
3. Browse to recently downloaded SSMS media from URL in step 1, In my case it was in D:\Software
4. Use below command to install it to a different folder, In my case I am installing it on D:\test.
“SSMS-Setup-ENU.exe /Install /quiet /norestart /log D:\Test\log.txt SSMSInstallRoot = D:\test”
And you are all set…
Saurabh Srivastava's SQL Server Blog 
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This still doesn’t resolve the conflict of SSMS looking for the previous install path which isn’t available anymore.
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Send me the screenshot and I would be able to help you.. Also with newer versions this post is not entirely true… With newer versions MS has enabled the path option again
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I tried this method, but got the following error from log file.
[22BC:3A7C][2020-07-02T09:34:00]e000: Error 0x80070057: UX did not provide variable name.
How can i fix this error?
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Hi Rakesh,
You can try latest SSMS Version that will not have this issue.
However if you still have to install this version please send more details from log file for me to understand the error better
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I was trying to copy the log file content here but i got the error message “Invalid security token”
FYI, I tried to install 18.5.1(latest), 18.5, 18.4 and also 18.0 but all attempts failed.
Could not figure out the exact issue….
I am very thankful to your quick reply. If you provide me your email id I shall send you the full log
Thank you very much dear Sourabh.
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