Symptom

Every time BarTender is launched, you encounter the following error message:

Environment

BarTender 2019 and later.

Solution

You're encountering this error because BarTender fails to find SqlLocalDB.exe. This error does not prevent BarTender from working, and you can safely click OK and ignore it if you prefer. If you'd like to prevent the error message from popping up, however, follow these steps:

1. BarTender looks for this file on the C:\ drive and the error occurs when you install BarTender on a different mapped drive. For this example, say you installed BarTender on the D:\ drive.
2. If you browse to D:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn, you will find SqlLocalDB.exe.
3. To prevent the error from occurring, copy the file over to the same folder on the C:\ drive (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn).