See KB article 919236 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919236). This article is about SQL Server Management
Studio, which is a .NET 2.0 (I think) app. I had this error at a
customer site with our .NET 3.5 app. This problem occurs if the value
of the following registry key is not empty or is set to an invalid
value: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International\sPositiveSign. The
article has instructions on resolving the issue.