error PRJ0003 : Error spawning 'cl.exe'.

Question

I converted VS2006 vc++ project to VS2008. When compiling I get the above error. How do i fix it? am I missing this exe ?

Answer 1

cl.exe is VS2008 (and any other VS) C/C++ compiler, so check for more detailed error message why it cannot be spawned. Be sure you've installed C++ language support when installing VS2008.

Answer 2

It could be that your "path" environment variable does not contain the path to the folder where cl.exe is located.

Another possible reason could be that when installing VS2008, you did not select the option to install the Win32 tools (which include the command line compiler).

In any case, you may want to try to repair the installation of VS2008 (by running its setup via Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs), or use its "Add/Remove components" option and add the "Win32 tools" option (under Visual C++ - Visual C++ Tools).

Answer 3

There is a bug in the Visual Studio 2008 Standard Edition installer. It does not install cl.exe if you only install Visual C++ but not Visual C#. To work around this you have to install Visual C# even if you do not need this.