John your problem is a useless addin named "Show IDE events", that due to the behavior of PellesC installer, that automatically enables all addins on first installation, shows useless messages masking compiler error messages.
First of all I have to clarify, once again, that I don't like this behavior, that is de facto a big security hole, that on first installation can potentially run malicious code eventually present in the addin folder.
Now to solve the problem from menu choose Tools->Customize ...
Then a dialog appears, choose the tab Add-ins
Search for an addin named Show IDE events
Uncheck it and press OK
Now the IDE should work correctly.
Let me know if you're OK or still in trouble.