The GemFire Native Client is built using Visual Studio 2005 SP1. Because of this it is bound by the Manifest rules that govern the msvcr80.dll. The MSI installer that is provided with the product will install the msvcr80.dll in the Windows Side-by-side directory.

Users that attempt to copy the Native Client onto a machine without running the MSI installer may have dll initialization problems because the msvcr80.dll manifest rules. To verify a machine will run the Native Client correctly, look in the C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS directory for a directory like this:
x86_Microsoft.VC80.CRT_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.762_x-ww_6b128700 
The key part is "8.0.50727.762", older versions will not work. However the Side-by-side system is designed to allow multiple versions of the msvcr80.dll to coexist.
If you are missing this directory you can correct the problem by running the vcredist_x86.exe provided by Microsoft and also available on the Gemstone ftp site. If you choose to download it from Microsoft there are multiple versions of the same name: the vcredist_x86.exe must be for VS2005 SP1 (and not for VS2005).

The C# portion of the Native Client is dependent on the unmanaged C++ code so the above installation is still required. In addition it is recommended that the GemStone.GemFire.Cache.dll be installed into the General Assembly Cache using the gac tool to simplify the deployment of applications.