thank you Luigi, I did know about the VC9 free redistributable
package, but I missed its SP1 version.
Anyway my point is that I didn't have to distribute the equivalent
package for VC8, so it must be included in XP SP2 or .Net Framework
2.0
I wonder if the VC9 package is included in XP SP3 and/or .Net
Framework 3.5, in which I'll probably just wait for wider adoption of
them.