trouble getting past set up

using 2.1.4 (maybe I should use different version? I want to use marmalade also):
Looked through multiple guides,

  • starting with Build-win32.bat. at first i got errors saying that it couldn’t parse something. Only (Red) error messages. However, I was able to open up the vs2010 and build it there (i am using vs2010 ultimate).
    I don’t know what happened but at some point the bat file started bringing up only yellow (warnings) and blue (link?) messages and I was able to build it that way too. At the end there were errors, but it seemed to build all the way so I ignored it.
    Running the samples in the debug.win32 folder only bring up a black screen with the framerate. However, running them in visual studio works fine.
    -install-templates-msvc.bat says that it can not find the .js files. then i tried the create_project.py which needs json. I tried installing simple json and reinstalling python 3.2, but I still get errors.
    "
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File “C:2d-x-2.1.4\cocos2d-x-2.1.4\tools\project-creator\create_project_
    python3.py”, line 190, in
    shutil.copytree(context[“src_project_path”], context[“dst_project_path”], Tr
    ue)
    File “C:32\lib\shutil.py”, line 195, in copytree
    names = os.listdir(src)
    WindowsError: [Error 3] The system cannot find the path specified: ‘…/…/template/multi-platform-cpp.*’"
    Can I just start with the helloworld solution and build on top of it?
    I also removed the cocosdragonjs and the watermelonwithme projects from vs2010. I am not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Please help and thank you for your time.

People have been saying there are subtle problems with the generated templates. I would try to work with a modified HelloWorld first, like you suggested.
As for the version number, I honestly don’t know if moving to a later (or latest) version would help, but I’d like to think there have been more improvements than not.

Thank you. I am just not sure if I will run into problems as the project grows, like building with marmalade for example.