I was trying to start my much procrastinated book on C++/CLI from apress in my newly installed visual studio 2008 pro. Then i ran into this error "Automation server can't create object" when trying to make any C++ project (CLR, ATL, Win32, any of them).

So i looked around on the internet and basically the solution was to reinstall windows scripting host (WSH 5.6 or 5.7).

Well the HUGE problem there is that I'm on windows Vista and there are no installers available from microsoft for WSH on windows vista!

So, I had to install windows vista in upgrade mode over top of my existing windows vista. (i went from home premium to ultimate).

I should have taken this as a hint that I need to downgrade back to windows XP, but i'm just so damn impressed with the Vista search functionality and directx 10 in games that I can't imagine going back.