Why does Visual Studio not know the correct definition of this struct?

Answer 1

The problem is that this

struct foo { /*...*/ } * bar;

defines bar to be a foo*, not a foo. Try

struct foo { /*...*/ } bar;

instead.

Answer 2

Are you running a Debug build? Debugging a release build will often seem to work, but the debugger will report garbage values for variables.

If that's not it, then I'd try to verify if it is a compiler/syntax issue by splitting up the definition so you define the struct as a typedef and then define the pointer in a separate statement. (This would arguably make the code more readable/maintainable anyway - if you don't trust the code above then rewriting it in a way that you do trust is advisable)

Answer 3

Try declaring the struct frame and defining a variable of that type in different statements.

struct frame {
    /* .. Various other fields, etc */
    struct frame *next;
};
static struct frame *Frame = NULL;

Maybe the static messes up Visual Studio.

Answer 4

There's something about your situation described by Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822551

WORKAROUND: Microsoft strongly recommends that you use unique type definitions.