I hate duplicating code, but the compiler forces us.  Copy the body of the function above it, like this:

```cpp
    void insert(iterator it, const_iterator first, const_iterator last)
    {
        if (it == vch.begin() + nReadPos && last - first <= nReadPos)
        {
            // special case for inserting at the front when there's room
            nReadPos -= (last - first);
            memcpy(&vch[nReadPos], &first[0], last - first);
        }
        else
            vch.insert(it, first, last);
    }

#if !defined(_MSC_VER) || _MSC_VER >= 1300
    void insert(iterator it, const char* first, const char* last)
    {
        if (it == vch.begin() + nReadPos && last - first <= nReadPos)
        {
            // special case for inserting at the front when there's room
            nReadPos -= (last - first);
            memcpy(&vch[nReadPos], &first[0], last - first);
        }
        else
            vch.insert(it, first, last);
    }
#endif
```

The modified version of serialize.h is attached.

BTW, in my tests, VC8 produced an EXE that would only run on systems that had VC8 installed on them.  The error it gives is extremely vague.  I think they expect you to install a package during setup, but bitcoin doesn't have a setup.

My testing has been with MSVC 6.0 SP6 and GCC 3.4.5. GCC is the release build.  There's nothing wrong with the MSVC 6.0 build other than its optimization of the SHA routines for generating blocks is slow.

Satoshi