Same problem building several modules on XP using Visual Studio .NET

[kz]

Hallo Gurus,

I understand that this problem in NOT strictly Perl related, and I would
probably be better off in a M$ newsgroup. I assumed though that the solution
of this problem can be useful for several Windows Perl coders, therefore I
posted here. Apologies if my assumption was inappropriate.

I wanted to upgrade Tk (and install several new modules) on my system and I
have been following Chris Whiting's recommendations as posted in
http://groups.google.ca/[email protected] on how
to install VS .NET.

After installation completed and the machine rebooted I tried to build Tk
using the usual sequence
perl makefile.pl
nmake
nmake test
nmake install

However nmake aborts with a screen saying "This application has failed to
start because mspdb71.dll was not found. reinstalling the application may
fix this problem." Typical Microsoft problem description, isn't it?
This dll is invoked when cl.exe - the command line C compiler - is called.

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\";C:\Program Files\Far


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 you please give me a hint what I should check next? Your help will be
very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance and best regards,

Zoltan Kandi, M. Sc.