I just did a quick test, but if I create a new form app in VC2003, it never
uses afxres.h.
Are you sure that your project does not use MFC somewhere? because that is
not included with VC express.

Apart from that I just found this on google:
http://www.winprog.org/tutorial/errors.html

The advise there is to replace #include "afxres.h" with #include "winres.h"
The problem is that I do not know if that header is shipped with either the
PSDK or express because on my system it is in the atlmfc directory.

however, winresrc seems to be shipped with the platform SDK.
could you perhaps try using that one instead of afxres.h?

afxres.h contains a lot more than winres.h, but winres.h includes winresrc.h
and does not do much more that could be affecting you if the project is a
managed .NET project. so if it should be true that replacing afxres with
winres solves the problem, then winresrc might do the trick as well.

If that does not work, perhaps you can remove all non-essential stuff from
the app (so that it is very small) and mail it to me so that I can take a
look at it?