This problem was solved on a computer having Visual Studio Community 2017 v15.5.2 and the Visual Studio Installer v1.16.1247.518 installed.
The steps used are as follows:
- Start the Visual Studio Installer
- Visual Studio Installer showed a Installed section that stated that Visual
Studio Community 2017. In that section was a drop-down titled More. The drop-
down option Modify was selected.
- Visual Studio Installer then showed "tabs" titled Workloads, Individual
components, Language packs and Installed locations. The tab "Individual components" was selected.
- Scrolling down the list of Individual components, there was a section titled
Compilers, build tools, and runtimes. Under that section there was a VC++
2015.3 v140 toolset for desktop (x86,x64) option that was unchecked. The
option was then checked.
- The Modify button located at the lower right part of the Visual Studio
Installer was pushed.
- After waiting an unreasonably long amount of time, the installer finished
modifying the installation of Visual Studio Community 2017.
As always, your mileage may differ.