problem with visual c++ runtime library ?

Alright, I've been getting some strange error messages on some programs when I try to install them. The three in particular are AVG, Avast or Visual C++ redistributable 2008, 2010 seems to install fine. The error message is slightly different for each program, but they all seem to be having the same problem, finding or installing an assembly of some sort, the specific name is as follows...

'Microsoft.VC90.ATL,version="9.0.30729.4148",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",processorArchitecture="x86",type="win32"'

I don't know what this is, but it seems to be related to Visual C++ somehow. Reinstalling it doesn't help, and as I said before I can't install anything before 2010. I've even tried reinstalling framework 3.5 in hopes that would work, but no dice. So I have no idea what this problem could be.