There are many users posting solutions to this problem but none worked for me on my XP computer. I am using Audacity 2.06
What did work on several computers I tried it on, was installing .Net Framework which is available from Microsoft.
I installed the following versions:
2.0 Service Pack 2.0
3.0 Service Pack 2.0
3.5 Service Pack 1.0
Even if you are using Audacity 2.03 it stall may require .Net Framework 2.0 or 3.0.
I’m not sure why this works, but it does. The only reason I tried it was that it was the only program that was different from my computer and the one I was trying to install Audacity on.
The “Redistributable Package” did not fix the problem on my computers.
As soon as I installed The .Net Framework downloads from Microsoft Audacity opened just fine.