Yes I expect the problem to come back when you uninstal VC++, but what happens if you then uninstal IE 7? Many similar problems on the internet seem to be related to IE 7. I can understand if it is too much work to uninstal IE 7 and VC++, but I'm just curious.
EDIT: just saw your edit. That would be great!

Does PE Explorer tell you what kind of dependency it is? Is it a load time dependency? If it doesn't tell you, could you check it in dependency walker ?

Also, what version of ws2_32.dll does PE Explorer tell you it depends on?