As an epilogue to all of this, I've now got it compiling and linking happily. The problem with being unable to invoke cl.exe turned out not to be gubbed paths at all. Rather, it was a conflict with Sandboxie. Upgraded that to the latest version and all works well. (Luckily someone else had had a similar problem and mentioned it on another forum.) Thanks to all who offered help. Now I can get back to coding!