MS Fortran 4.0 and VS2005 MFC project

My company still uses MS Fortran 4.0 to compile our fortran into a lib
which is then linked into our MFC project. We currently use VS2003
and every gets along fine.

While converting to VS2005, I found that the MS fortran dll
(MSFORT40.dll) is causing the program to fail at startup. The
following message is displayed:

"The program '[2368] Test.exe: Native' has exited with code 255
(0xff)."

Further investigation revals that the failure occurs within initterm_e
(crtexe.c):

    #ifndef _SYSCRT
                if (_initterm_e( __xi_a, __xi_z ) != 0)
                {
                    return 255; // HERE IS WHERE WE GET KICKED OUT!
                }
    #else /* _SYSCRT */
                _initterm((_PVFV *)(void *)__xi_a, (_PVFV *)(void
*)__xi_z);
    #endif /* _SYSCRT */
    ...

If I force the debugger to skip the "return 255" and continue on, the
program will start but this is really bogus as initterm_e ended early
and not every thing may have been initialized.

In VS2003, a different inittem (crtexe.c) is called that does not
return anything:

            /*
             * Do runtime startup initializers.
             *
             * Note: the only possible entry we'll be executing here
is for
             * __lconv_init, pulled in from charmax.obj only if the
EXE was
             * compiled with -J. All other .CRT$XI* initializers are
only
             * run as part of the CRT itself, and so for the CRT DLL
model
             * are not found in the EXE. For that reason, we call
_initterm,
             * not _initterm_e, because __lconv_init will never return
failure,
             * and _initterm_e is not exported from the CRT DLL.
             *
             * Note further that, when using the CRT DLL, executing
the
             * .CRT$XI* initializers is only done for an EXE, not for
a DLL
             * using the CRT DLL. That is to make sure the -J setting
for
             * the EXE is not overriden by that of any DLL.
             */
            _initterm( __xi_a, __xi_z );
            ...

What is _SYSCRT? It is the "#ifndef _SYSCRT" that causes the
"initterm_e" function and not the "initterm" version to be called. I
think that if the "initterm" is called that does not return anything,
all will be good. Anyone have a similar experience or any suggestions
on how to get this to work? Thanks in advance.