Greg,

I have seen this where objects during the install have failed to register.  
One thing you could do is follow the Microsoft Knowledge Base Article below
to fully remove the product from the machine and then reinstall and see if
it crashes again.  

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=248697

If the above doesn't work, then try running a regmon during the
installation.  This will assist in finding out what the problem is while
installing.   You can download regmon from
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/regmon.shtml.  

You can also produce an Acme Log during the setup.  Simply execute the
command-line <cddrive>:\setup /gc c:\vslog.txt.  

If you need assistance in reviewing the logs, please forward them on, I
will be glad to review them.

Cheers,
Tim Macaulay
Microsoft Corp.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights

Hi everyone,

I think my problem is similar to yours.
Mainly being a Perl coder I need from time to time to compile Perl modules.
I have been following Chris Whiting's recommendations as posted in
http://groups.google.ca/groups?selm=3fe1226b_8%40news.athenanews.com on how
to install VS .NET.
After installation completed and the machine rebooted (seemed to be good at
that point)

Every time when cl.exe - the command line C compiler - is called, I get a
popup screen saying "This application has failed to start because
mspdb71.dll was not found. reinstalling the application may
fix this problem."
The relevant environment settings are:

INCLUDE="D:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\include\";"C:\Program
Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include\";"D:\Program
Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\include\";

LIB="D:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Lib\";"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib\";"D:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Lib\";

Path=D:\Perl\bin\;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;"C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\bin\";"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio
.NET 2003\Common7\IDE\";"D:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Bin\";"D:\Program
Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Bin\";"D:\Program Files\Microsoft
SDK\Bin\Win64\";

The file mspdb71.dll claimed to be missing does reside in the folder
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Common7\IDE\

Typing mspdb71.dll from the command prompt (from another folder) invokes the
"open with" dialog and I can open the file using notepad. The path settings
are also correct because I placed a small batch file
echoing a message in this folder and invoked it from another folder.

I think there are some other dependencies which did not get installed.

Could someone please give me a hint what I should check next? Your help will
be very much appreciated. I would prefer NOT to uninstall everything if
there's a simple solution available.

Thanks in advance and best regards,

Zoltan Kandi, M. Sc.