Ok, so I downloaded VC++ Express 2008, and here's what you need to do to get
DANCE compiling with it:

When you first open the DANCE projects in Visual C++ Express 2008 and open the
$DANCE_DIR/build/vs2005 project, Visual C++ express will convert the project
files, but it will forget to include the extensions, so you need to do the
following:

Under Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->VC++ Directories, add the
following:

1) Choose Include Files in the upper right dropdown menu
2) Add:

$(DANCE_DIR)/extensions/fltk-2.0.x-r4773
$(DANCE_DIR)/extensions/ode-0.10.1/include
$(DANCE_DIR)/extensions/lib3ds-1.3.0
C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.4.7-Q8\include (or whatever the path to the
ImageMagick directory is)
C:\Python25\include (Or whatever the path to your Python installation is)

3) Choose Library files in the upper right dropdown menu:
4) Add:

$(DANCE_DIR)/lib
C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-6.4.7-Q8\include
C:\Python25\libs


5) remove the file glaux.lib from all the dance_v4 project libraries (Project
Properties -> Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies

6) If needed, remove the lib3ds.rc file from the lib3ds project before building.

7) Make sure to build the projects in the $(DANCE_DIR)/extensions area first
(ODE, FLTK, lib3ds)

8) make sure that you have the service pack 1 (SP1) with hotfixes for Microsoft
C++ Express (my version is 9.0.30729.1 sp)

Regards,

Ari Shapiro