Fix problem “The ‘VSTS for Database Professionals Sql Server Data-tier Application’ package did not load correctly”

“The ‘VSTS for Database Professionals Sql Server Data-tier Application’ package did not load correctly”

Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server Express have an uneasy alliance, at best.  When you install Visual Studio 2010 it installs SQL Server Express 2008 for you, but only the database engine, not SQL Server Management Studio.  If you mess with SQL Server Express in order to install the management tools, or upgrade to 2008 R2, or install the Advanced Services version, things break and you can no longer reliably use the Visual Studio database projects.

In particular, if you remove SQL Server Express 2008 and install SQL Server Express 2008 R2, you’ll probably run into an issue where if you try to open a schema object in a Visual Studio database project you’ll get an error that says:

The ‘VSTS for Database Professionals Sql Server Data-tier Application’ package did not load correctly.

The fix for this problem can be found here.  Here’s the short version:

1. Locate your Visual Studio 2010 installation media.
2. In the \WCU\DAC folder, you’ll find three MSIs: DACFramework_enu.msi, DACProjectSystemSetup_enu.msi, and TSqlLanguageService_enu.msi.  Run and install each of them.
3. Reapply Visual Studio 2010 SP1.

You should be back to a working state.