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I'm trying to install Testacular (using nmp) on a Windows 8 Professional (64 bit) laptop, but it fails when it tries to install socket.io as part of this process. The error I get is

Could not load the Visual C++ component "VCBuild.exe".
To fix this, 1) install the .NET Framework 2.0 SDK, 2) install Microsoft Visual 
Studio 2005 or 3) add the location of the component to the system path if it
is installed elsewhere.

I apparently have .NET framework 3.5 installed (it's checked under the add/remove Windows components bit in Control Panel), although I've not managed to find a vcbuild.exe. I tried installing an old copy of VS2005 but this resulted in a different error about an invalid project (.vcproj) file.

Can anyone suggest how I might get this working? Weirdly it installed fine on my work computer, which is very similar to the one on which it won't install (they're both 64 bit Win 8 Pro).

kjhughes
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toby1kenobi
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    I'm getting the same issue on Windows 7 – rob Apr 09 '13 at 19:02
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    It seems like it's not uncommon, but I can't find a solution. I've tried to ask about it in the Socket.io Google group a couple of times, but my question never seems to get approved. – toby1kenobi Apr 10 '13 at 07:59

2 Answers2

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I ran into the same issue. I fixed this by adding this to environmental variable PATH: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcpackages so that it can find vc build.

Julia Zhu
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  • Yes. Toby. I got the same message as yours, but somehow by adding the environmental variable fixes the issue. – Julia Zhu Apr 12 '13 at 21:02
  • Thanks for this, it actually got me past this error, only to stumble at a new one! – toby1kenobi May 22 '13 at 20:47
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    I'm not interested in installing visual studio, surely there is a way around this? It's frustrating that developing with nodejs even requires anything from microsoft other than a dll somewhere. – airtonix Apr 22 '14 at 11:57
  • @airtonix - I totally agree with you, it's far from ideal at the moment. – UpTheCreek May 12 '14 at 12:01
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    @UpTheCreek Yep. I gave up and went back to using a Linux Based Operating System, where stuff just works (tm). – airtonix May 12 '14 at 13:15
  • I don't have the file path C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcpackages, perhaps because I'm using 8.0? I created the file path C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 8.0\VC\vcpackages\vcbuild.exe but it didn't solve the problem. – maudulus Sep 18 '14 at 17:08
  • I tried installing [c++ redistributable for python](http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=44266) but it's not good enough. Now I'm getting this error: [vcbuild.exe : error VCBLD0010](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13290921/wrong-version-of-vcbuild-exe-is-invoked) – Renaud Dec 17 '14 at 15:46
  • how do I add a environmental variable PATH ? – coiso Mar 15 '15 at 13:32
  • I don't understand why the --msvs_version flag was not working for me, but this fixed it – Kyle Jun 26 '15 at 02:04
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In Visual Studio 2010, the command line tool vcbuild.exe is replaced by msbuild.exe. So, please make sure you have right Visual studio.

Sandeep Shabd
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