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After installing Visual Studio 2008 Standard with only Visual C++, when you try to build any kind of C++ project you will receive an error message: Project : error PRJ0003 : Error spawning 'cl.exe'

Article ID: 969866 - View products that this article applies to.

Source: Microsoft Support

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Action

Install Visual Studio 2008 Standard with only Visual C++ and try to build any kind of C++ project.

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Result

When you try to build any kind of C++ project you will receive the following error message: Project : error PRJ0003 : Error spawning 'cl.exe'

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Cause

The root cause of this issue is that cl.exe file is only included in the feature of C# (C Sharp) in vs_std sku. That means it will not get installed by only installing Visual C++.

If you search for cl.exe on the machine you will find the following occurrences:
1. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\amd64\cl.exe"
2. "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin\x86_amd64\cl.exe"

The folder "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\bin" does not include cl.exe.

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Resolution

Install C# (C Sharp) along with Visual C++.

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More Information

Repro Steps
=============================
Install Visual Studio 2008 Standard with only C++
Launch VS 2008 IDE
Create any kind of new C++ project
Build the project
You will receive the following error message:Project : error PRJ0003 : Error spawning 'cl.exe'

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