Simon:
I did give it a try. Yes, I could load the ArduinoISP, that worked fine. I also loaded a program (Sketch) into a ATtiny85 which I knew had the bootloader on it. Put ATtiny85 into breadboard and it worked fine. I could not load the bootloader with Visual Micro. I got the following error.
Burning a new bootloader
Burning bootloader to board 'ATtiny85 (ATtiny25/45/85)' using 'Arduino as ISP'
Error while burning bootloader.
Burn failed
avrdude: can't open input file aders/{bootloader.file}: No such file or directory
avrdude: read from file oaders/{bootloader.file}' failed
After trying and trying I was ready to give up, but I try something that maybe I should of not. I got a brand new ATtiny which I am sure never had the bootloader installed. I loaded a program on to it and put it in my breadboard and it worked fine. I also try a few more brand new ATtiny85, different program, different breadboards, all worked fine. Therefore I have a question. Why is the bootloader not needed? Am I missing something? What is the issue? Here is the result of one of my program compile and download, as you can see it is all fine.
Uploading 'Four_Lights_On' to 'ATtiny85 (ATtiny25/45/85)' using 'Arduino as ISP'
Uploader started for board ATtiny85 (ATtiny25/45/85)
Uploader will use programmer name: arduinoasisp
ino17\bin\avrdude rduino17/etc/avrdude.conf" -v -pattiny85 -cstk500v1 -PCOM7 -b19200 nyX5_attiny85\Release/Four_Lights_On.ino.hex:i"
avrdude: Version 6.3-20190619
Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean,
http://www.bdmicro.com/ Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch
System wide configuration file is uino17/etc/avrdude.conf"
Using Port : COM7
Using Programmer : stk500v1
Overriding Baud Rate : 19200
AVR Part : ATtiny85
Chip Erase delay : 400000 us
PAGEL : P00
BS2 : P00
RESET disposition : possible i/o
RETRY pulse : SCK
serial program mode : yes
parallel program mode : yes
Timeout : 200
StabDelay : 100
CmdexeDelay : 25
SyncLoops : 32
ByteDelay : 0
PollIndex : 3
PollValue : 0x53
Memory Detail :
Block Poll Page Polled
Memory Type Mode Delay Size Indx Paged Size Size #Pages MinW MaxW ReadBack
----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
eeprom 65 12 4 0 no 512 4 0 4000 4500 0xff 0xff
flash 65 6 32 0 yes 8192 64 128 30000 30000 0xff 0xff
signature 0 0 0 0 no 3 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
lock 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00
lfuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00
hfuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00
efuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00
calibration 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00
Programmer Type : STK500
Description : Atmel STK500 Version 1.x firmware
Hardware Version: 2
Firmware Version: 1.18
Topcard : Unknown
Vtarget : 0.0 V
Varef : 0.0 V
Oscillator : Off
SCK period : 0.1 us
avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.02s
avrdude: Device signature = 0x1e930b (probably t85)
avrdude: safemode: lfuse reads as 62
avrdude: safemode: hfuse reads as DF
avrdude: safemode: efuse reads as FF
avrdude: NOTE: "flash" memory has been specified, an erase cycle will be performed
To disable this feature, specify the -D option.
avrdude: erasing chip
avrdude: reading input file y85\Release/Four_Lights_On.ino.hex"
avrdude: writing flash (524 bytes):
Writing | ################################################## | 100% 0.80s
avrdude: 524 bytes of flash written
avrdude: verifying flash memory against 85\Release/Four_Lights_On.ino.hex:
avrdude: load data flash data from input file 85\Release/Four_Lights_On.ino.hex:
avrdude: input file 85\Release/Four_Lights_On.ino.hex contains 524 bytes
avrdude: reading on-chip flash data:
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.39s
avrdude: verifying ...
avrdude: 524 bytes of flash verified
avrdude: safemode: lfuse reads as 62
avrdude: safemode: hfuse reads as DF
avrdude: safemode: efuse reads as FF
avrdude: safemode: Fuses OK (E:FF, H:DF, L:62)
The upload process has finished.
avrdude done. Thank you.
I do not understand what going on and do not like to do
things I do not understand.
Thanks for the help,
Joe