" Executing Adobe Begin on Windows XP on a Non-Development Machine

When an app is built using a version of MSVC, that version of Microsoft's Runtimes Libraries must be 'findable' by the OS in order to launch the application. Part of Microsoft's solution to this problem includes the embedding of an application manifest file into the application. On development machines, these files are automatically installed in C:\WINDOWS\system32\. The manifest file describes the binary's dependencies to external DLLs, and the OS reads the file and hunts down the dependencies to load them. In a clean-install XP system, the Runtime Libraries for MSVC 7.0, 7.1, and 8 do not exist, which will lead ultimately to the failure to launch applications built with these compilers on non-development machines.

Our current workaround to this problem is to *not* embed the manifest file in the binary directly, but leave it as a sibling to the app. Then the necessary runtime libraries must also be placed as siblings to the app, along with a manifest file describing them to the OS. For some reason both of these steps are required, and then the app will run in a clean XP installation. (Thanks to Ken Silver for being the first one report Adobe Begin failing to load on his non-development machine.) "

http://stlab.adobe.com/asl_readme.html