Saturday, February 13, 2010

Visual Studio 2008 failed to start

One funny problem just happened with my computer for the second time in half-a-year.
Visual Studio 2008 (MS VS2008 SP1 with ATL fixes) suddenly refused to run and displayed the following problem: "Cannot find one or more components. Please reinstall the application".

This thread contains the detailed desciption of the problem and similar user stories: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/vssetup/thread/76713427-0daa-4907-a017-633ad258a5af
It actually helped me very much to resolve this problem for the first and second times.

The second time it was the same file, but I still don't know what kind of software/installation removed it.

WinSxS\x86_Microsoft.VC90.ATL_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.30729.4148_x-ww_353599c2\ATL90.DLL

The easiest way to restore it is to download and install vcredist_x86 (redistributable for Visual C++ 2008 SP1 with ATL security update) from here (if your computer is missing the same file):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2051A0C1-C9B5-4B0A-A8F5-770A549FD78C&displaylang=en

I wouldn't recommend copying atl90.dll from any x86 directory inside WinSxS since they all different versions, and this one actually contains some security fixes.

P.S. You need to start profiling (F7) in depends (Dependancy Walker, rocks!) to see which dlls are really required and missing on your system.

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