I thought that my problem was how I was declaring a manifest file.
But now I think I can safely rule this out.

I think the probem lies in the way I am loading the DLL/COM object
that the manifest file references.

The program runs -- sort of.  After I embed the manifest file into
the executable.  I just cannot step through the code in debug mode.

So I put the manifest file into the list of files that the IDE had
to reference.  And then I noticed a big change.  Then the executable
that I produced had an error message (that I could ignore and continue
running the program, if I choose to) that said the probem was
with the way I was loading the COM object.

How do I load a DLL into a GUI front-end written in C#.  Where
should I look for possible problems?

There is something else that interests me.  There is a file that appears
in some of the output directories called <project name>.vshost.exe.
How is this used in the project and connected with external COM objects?

Also, how do I use WinDbg?