Can't create new project

Hi all,

I apologise if this is an obvious n00b question. I've used C++ before but on Linux with g++ and Vim, so I've no experience with Visual C++. I have the 2008 Express edition on Windows Vista and it won't let me create a new project.

After starting up Visual C++ I select File > New > Project from the menu, which gives me a dialog window with eight different Visual Studio installed templates to choose from. For each one I select, I enter a project name, press OK then either one of two things happens:

a) Nothing happens

b) Another dialog window comes up with the title "Welcome to the Win32 Application Wizard". This has a panel that says "These are the current project settings" and there are three bullet points underneath, but they don't have any text. If I press either the "Finish" or "Cancel" buttons nothing happens, so I then have to close the window with its close icon.

If I select File > New > File then "C++ file (.cpp)" it'll let me open and enter a new file but then won't give me the option to run it using "Start without debugging (Ctrl + F5)".

Any ideas? Am I missing something obvious? The frustrating thing is that I also have Visual C# 2008 Express edition installed and that runs fine.

I've managed to fix this now. I found the following fix but it still had the same problem after I'd worked my way through it:

http://masteranza.wordpress.com/2008...on-failed-bug/

I then tried running Visual C++ as administrator and it now works fine. I'm not sure whether it was the above fix that made this possible, or whether it would have worked beforehand if I'd have tried running it as administrator.