I recently picked up and am working my way through Pro C# 2010 and the .NET 4 Platform. One of the early exercises is to play around with the C# command line compiler (when was the last time anyone here used a command line compiler?) to get a feel for the tools and, I imagine, to fully appreciate all of the features of Visual Studio down the line.

Booting up the command line tool (on Windows 7 x64), I see this:

Quote

Problem solving mode engaged: perhaps there's a wayward environmental variable, something didn't run correctly on set up, a rebellious batch file, so on and so forth.

A quick query on MSDN reveals that many individuals found themselves in a similar predicament. For the most part, my hypothesis was correct, as all the help threads involved checking the VS100COMNTOOLS environmental variable, modifying some batch files, and reinstalling.

After digging around a bit to no avail, I came across the suggestion of "Run as Administrator". No way, I thought. I'm logged into an admin account with zero permission issues, but why not, nothing else has worked thus far. Lo and behold, that was the issue.

Short moral of the story: try the easy solutions first.

Slightly longer moral of the story: start at the "bottom" of the problem solving tree and gradually work your way up after eliminating possibilities. I personally guarantee a reduction in "head against wall" time.


Author's Note: Having dug through the typical suspects of this problem based on MSDN help threads, I then ran the command line tool as admin. In no way should this be the first course of action without fully researching the issue. I merely meant to comment on the fact of its simplicity since [as it turns out] I had nothing wrong with my environment and running as admin was the fix for my personal situation.