Visual C++ 2008 Installation Guide

Installing Visual C++

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/express/download/ and find the box titled Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition and click Download.

Note that Service Pack 2 (SP2) is required if you are running Windows XP. Go to http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/xpsp2.html to download SP2.

Service Pack 3 would work too. If you already have SP3, then you do not need SP2.
Run the downloaded executable and click Next.
Select I have read and accept the license terms and click Next.
Optionally select MSDN Express Library for Visual Studio 2008, which contains complete documentation on the ANSI C standard library and the STL for C++. It is a large download, but download speeds are around 2 MB/s on a fast connection. Click Next.
Click Install.
Wait for the download and installation to complete. Expect to reboot once. Also expect the .NET Framework 3.5 installlaiton to take a while. Click Exit when all is done.