I installed SQL Server 2008 R2 Standard with all components except for the
actual database engine and had to uninstall Management Studion 2005 Express
in the process. That all installed fine but when starting up Management
Studio 2008 I get an unhandled exception with "object reference not set to
and instance of an object." After this it closes down.

Could there be other components that I need to install to get this going?

MS (MS (AT) discussions (DOT) microsoft.com) writes:
So much is clear: it should not behave this way.

But really what is wrong, I don't know. Possibly the uninstall of SSMS
2005 Express removed something which should hang around.

I would try to perform a repair of the install, and see if this helps. This
is one of the options when you run install.

If the error persists, you could post the stack you see when click
Details.



--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel (AT) sommarskog (DOT) se

Links for SQL Server Books Online:
SQL 2008: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/cc514207.aspx
SQL 2005: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/bb895970.aspx
SQL 2000: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinf...ons/books.mspx