Browsing Cube In Management Studio Throws Class String Error

February 12, 2010 in Management Studio | 9 comments

Using the Management Studio (SSMS) I just received an error which I hadn’t seen before. Here’s what I was doing.

On my freshly-installed Windows 7 64-bit machine I have both SQL Server 2008 SP1 and SQL Server 2008 R2 (NOV CTP) running (both 64-bit as well). And I just installed the new Contoso data warehouse and OLAP DB.

After setting up the data source connection of the Contoso_Retail OLAP database and processing it successfully, the next logical step is to try and browse the cubes, through the Management Studio. So that’s what I tried, but unfortunately it gave me the following error:

Hmm, okay, that doesn’t look good! “Invalid class string”, what does that mean??

So I tried the link that says “Click here to see detailed error information”, which gave me this:

Error pop-up: I don't see the details

I’m sorry, but where exactly are the details in this message?

Luckily a quick internet search gave me the solution (and reminded me of something which I actually knew but just didn’t think of because it’s all running in a totally new environment).

To browse cubes, SSMS is using a component from the “Microsoft Office 2003 Web Components” package, whatever that that means.

And the solution (as described here) is to:

Open the list of installed programs (Windows Key + R > appwiz.cpl > enter)
Locate the Office 2003 Web Components, right-click and select Change
Follow the wizard to repair/reinstall the components

Programs and Features

And now I am able to browse the cube without any issue!

Have fun!

Valentino.

Tags: Management Studio, SSMS

9 comments

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RANDY on March 13, 2010 at 9:40 AM

Hi,

I have tried above solution. But my app is run on windows 7 64bit.. still give me the same problem. Please please really if can help on this.

Reply
Valentino Vranken on March 13, 2010 at 2:49 PM

I encountered that issue using Win7 64-bit as well. And I was able to get it to work with the solution described here. So if that doesn’t work in your case, I suggest you to post your specific issue on one of the known forums, such as this one: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/sqlserver/

Try to put it in either the “Tools General” or the “Analysis Services” category.

Regards,
Valentino.

Reply
Kane on March 25, 2010 at 10:15 AM

Great, worked on 2 Systems!

Thanks!

Reply
madhu on May 4, 2010 at 9:32 AM

Thank u very much ,its saves so much of time ..
Keep going

Reply
mahdi on June 20, 2010 at 12:53 PM

great
Thank u very much for saving so much of time ..

Reply
Mike on December 21, 2010 at 5:58 PM

I am getting the same error, but I have Windows7 with Office 2010. There is no “web components”. Any idea what the 2010 counterpart is?

Reply
1. Valentino Vranken on December 22, 2010 at 2:06 PM
  
  I also have Win7 with Office 2010. Perhaps this component was not checked when you installed Office? (not sure if that’s possible actually)
  
  If that’s not the case, maybe this download helps?
  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyId=7287252C-402E-4F72-97A5-E0FD290D4B76&displaylang=en
  
  Reply
Anonymous on December 30, 2010 at 6:03 AM

Awesome, it was a great help

Reply
Sean on February 19, 2011 at 7:11 AM

Thanks !!! This just suddenly happened.. and that little fix did the trick for me beautifully.
I’m on Win 7 ultimate with SQL Server 2008 and Office 2010. I repaired the Office 2003
Web Components package as downloaded from one of the links in the other comments.

Sean

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