>I am not ready to install SOAP SP2 again until I understand why it trashed Visual Studio.

The toolkit is required on the server and client for this to work.

>Can I register the com dll from my machine to the web server on the netwowrk? If so, how?

Sure, just put the DLL on the web server, and the WSDL and ASP (if you're using ASP listner) files in a virtual directory. You need to make one adjustment though, in the WSDL, the path to the Web service itself (remember, the WSDL just describes the Web Service) is probably hard coded to your local server, so open upthe WSDL in notepad, find:

<soap:address location="http://mylocalserver/..."/>

and change the path to the new server.

That should be it.