I've gotten far enough to compile crap with MSVC9, but can't debug.
When I try to, I get a cute dialog that states "'<debugfilenameexecutablehere>' does not contain", a checkbox with "Do not prompt in the future", an OK and a Cancel button.

I assume it ment to say it doesn't contain debug information, and indeed the executable doesn't!

My compiler options (yes, i know a few are obsolete and ignored, i didn't get around to finding the VC9 equivalents yet):
"/nologo /MLd /W3 /Gm /GX /ZI /Od /D "WIN32" /D "_DEBUG" /D "_WINDOWS" /D "_MBCS" /Fp"Debug/blah.pch" /YX /Fo"Debug/" /Fd"Debug/" /FD /GZ /GF /c "

Linker options:
"libcmtd.lib msimg32.lib version.lib zdll.lib dbghelp.lib crypt32.lib WS2_32.lib comctl32.lib msvcrtd.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib winspool.lib comdlg32.lib advapi32.lib shell32.lib ole32.lib oleaut32.lib uuid.lib odbc32.lib odbccp32.lib /nologo /subsystem:windows /incremental:yes /pdb:"Debug/blah.pdb" /debug /machine:I386 /nodefaultlib /out:"Debug/blah.exe" /pdbtype:sept"

I assume part of the reason is because the .pdb file the compiler cranks out is ment for version 7 or greater, as the first few bytes of the file state "Microsoft C/C++ MSF 7.00". Also, it produces a vc90.pdb file, not vc60.pdb.
Updating the component(s) used for debugging would surely fix this all, right?
I don't know where they are in MSVC6's directory.

Suppose I find a good workaround for this. Then, how would I...
• Run mspdbsrv -start -spawn before c1.exe is executed
• Starting a new project, have the IDE fill in the correct default compiler options
?

bump

There isn't too much activity on here among the people who have experience in this, what about asking in the C programming section of forums.devshed.com? It has a bunch of the best *C* coders I've ever seen. They normally get answers to the questions pretty quickly.