Visual Studio error, debugger can’t start

“The components for the 64-bit debugger are not registered. Please repair your Visual Studio 2008 Remote Debugger installation via ‘Add or Remove Programs’ in Control Panel”

So, I uninstalled EVERYTHING related to Visual Studio. I assume it was a problem with SP1 and my XP 64-bit operating system. The reason I think this is the case: when I tried running the installer for the remote debugger from the VS2008 dvd, it had the options for repair and remove. Running either option gave me this message:

“Error 1324: The folder path folder name contains an invalid character.”

Could that be ‘Program Files (x86)’ by any chance? Why Microsoft would choose to name a system folder with a character the windows installer considers invalid is beyond me.

Anyway, the way I thought I’d share how I fixed the issue.

-Download Microsoft’s Windows Install Clean Up utility from: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301/

-Run the utility and remove ONLY Microsoft Visual Studio Remote Debugger

-Run the debugger setup from the dvd

Hopefully that will save someone a headache.

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