She turned off her antivirus software (CA Antivirus- she said she set it to 'snooze') and reinstalled with the same result. Both my and her machines are x86. I still suspect that antivirus software is somehow the culprit, but dealing with a relatively naive user who is a couple hundred miles away it's hard to confirm what is really happening. The platform I'm using bundles the MS VC++ 2005 redist software in it's runtime, so I'm not sure what reinstalling it will do - unless the install somehow disabled it. Since the event log identified something to do with Microsoft.V80....., I'm taking one more shot: The platform has 3 'Microsoft.V80...' folders in it's runtime. I 'zipped' them up, emailed them to her, and am talking her through replacing those placed by the installer. If it is antivirus related, hopefully a zipped email attachment will sneak it by any detection. The saga continues