I downloaded the visual studio 90 day trial and the game code. When I try to build the solution I first get told that it is "out of date", then a load of errors:
fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'd3dx9.h'
fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'dsound.h'

etc.

I haven't touched a thing, should this work straight off?

Thanks,

Giles.

You need to make sure that the DirectX SDK include files are on your path.

Go to Tools|Options and select "Include files" under the "Show directories for" drop down.

Click on the "New Line" icon (looks like a folder) and add the path to the DirectX includes. On the machine I'm using right now it is set to: C:Program FilesMicrosoft DirectX SDK (December 2006)Include.

You'll also need to do the same for the lib files.

Go to Tools|Options and select "Library files" under the "Show directories" drop down.

Click on the "New Line" icon and add the path to the DirectX library files, eg, C:Program FilesMicrosoft DirectX SDK (December 2006)Libx86.

--- Rod

Sounds to me like you never installed the DirectX SDK. Same thing happened to me Just install this and it should compile, I didn't have to set anything up in VC++.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=572BE8A6-263A-4424-A7FE-69CFF1A5B180&displaylang=en

Yeah spot on, I'd been using XNA and using various directInput libraries etc. so assumed I was covered. When I installed the directx sdk I got an error though and this seemed to result in a problem when trying to compile. I am going through uninstalling both Visual Studio and the DirectX SDk and reinstalling them now.

Cheers.

through the above posts & a bit of a google:
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=406191
I was able to get things to work/build properly. thx

Artist in a strange land