You get this error message on Visual Studio 2008 while compiling a C++ code?
You reinstalled Visual Studio and still get this error?
You did not find any solution in the MSDN?
You googled for hours and found only misleading hints (like missing links in
the Registry and other bullshit)?
You could not find rc.exe in the CAB files on the VS2008 Install DVD ?
Thanks to ElmüSoft here is the solution:
(I give you support for Microsoft products for free)
It seems that a bug in the VS2008 installer does not install rc.exe if another
version of Visual Studio (or the framework?) has already been installed before.
Analyzing what msdev.exe does with SysInternals ProcessMonitor I found that Visual Studio searches the entire world to find rc.exe:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9\VC\bin\rc.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bin\rc.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9\Common7\Tools\bin\rc.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9\Common7\Tools\rc.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9\Common7\IDE\rc.exe C:\Program Files\HTML Help Workshop\rc.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bin\rc.exe C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\rc.exe C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9\rc.exe C:\Windows\SysWow64\rc.exe C:\Windows\System32\rc.exe C:\Windows\rc.exe C:\Windows\System32\wbem\rc.exe C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\rc.exe
If it is not there in none of these folders then it spits out "Error spawning RC.exe".
So my solution was simple:
I copied rc.exe and rcdll.dll from my VS2005 installation into one of the above
folders.
After that the error disappeared and I saw another error: "Error spawning
MT.exe"
So I also copied mt.exe into the same folder and it compiled without error!
It's so easy.
If you don't have another Visual Studio installation where to take these files
from, I offer my files here (they are from VS2005 but work also on VS2008):
ErrorSpawningRcExe.zip
If you don't trust me, upload the file to www.virustotal.com
to see that there is no trojan in them.
Elmü