I went to set up the external tool for the Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt, but one requirement was to have batch file called vcvarsall.bat, which does not seem to exist in my installation. I found this VS 2008 Command Prompt setup routine by googling:
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/rmcochran/CommandPromptInStudioToolsMenu01152008103357AM/CommandPromptInStudioToolsMenu.aspx

The file, vcvarsall.bat is not found aywhere on my laptop. So, the command prompt, although it goes to the CMD command prompt, it does not execute the required batch file, vcvarsall.bat.

Enter Information:

Title: Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt
Command: cmd.exe
Arguments: %comspec% /k ""C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat"" x86

>You can try resetting the menu options in VS. In the MS VS 2008 > VS Tools submenu click the option to open a VS command prompt.