Application software that is written and built with Visual C++ (VC++) Express SP1 or Visual Studio 2005 SP1 will need to have VC++ 8.0 runtime libraries installed on the computer that does not have Visual Studio or Visual C++ 5.0 installed. Else when users attempt to run and execute the program, the errors such as failed to load DLL, component is missing a required dependency, side-by-side configuration contains errors and etc may occur.

VC++ 8.0 runtime component library is shipped as part of Visual Studio 2005 SP1, where it can be found at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\Bootstrapper\Packages folder. If you don’t have Visual Studio programming tool, you can download runtime component of VC 8.0 libraries directly as a standalone installer for free too.

Download links for Visual C++ 2005 SP1 (aka Visual C++ 8.0 SP1) Redistributable Package

This VC++ 8.0 runtime library package installs runtime components of C Runtime (CRT), Standard C++, ATL, MFC, OpenMP and MSDIA libraries. For libraries that support side-by-side deployment model (CRT, SCL, ATL, MFC, OpenMP) they are installed into the native assembly cache, also called WinSxS folder, on versions of Windows operating system that support side-by-side assemblies.

Although one of the requirements stated that Windows Installer 3.0 is required, the VC++ 8.0 also works fine with Windows Installer 2.0. It supports Windows 2000, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Vista, Windows XP.