How to install VC80CRT debug runtimes without full visual studio 2005?

Question

I can't run a debug sdk application because it requires both VC 8 and VC 9 versions of the CRT. But it only requires visual studio 2008 for plugin dev, which is what I need.

How do I install the debug runtimes from 2005 on to a Windows7 machine? I can't figure out how to make them run app local nor can I copy anything into the winSxS folder without a trusted installer.

Answer 1

You must install visual studio to get the debug CRT. This will be moot as soon as we don't need 2005 or 2008 again.

Answer 2

You can create a simple setup project (vdproj) which pulls in the debug merge modules.

This works fine up to Visual Studio 2010 (VS10) but is not supported for 2012 (VS11) and later :o(

Answer 3

Refer to this post.

As per this the debug dlls can be found at:

For Visual Studio 2005:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\redist\Debug_NonRedist\x86

For Visual Studio 2008:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\redist\Debug_NonRedist\x86

Also as per what I know you need not have these dlls in the WinSxS folder. Even if these dlls are present in the same directory as your application exe is, it will do. Anyways using debug dlls in production environment is not recommended.

In case you elevate your application, make sure you set the 'Start in' path to the application home/install directory or add the path to the VC++ debug dlls to the PATH environment variable.

Answer 4

You must install the C++ compilers to get the debug CRT, but you don't have to install all of Visual Studio. Instead, use the web install of the Windows SDK to install the compilers. The Windows 6 SDK includes the VC8 compilers, the Windows 7 SDK includes the VC9 compilers and the Windows 7.1 SDK includes the VC10 compilers.