Trouble deploying app in VB.NET

I'm trying to deploy an application and I'm getting an error that a newer version of a control is needed. Here are the details

1) My app uses an Access database and references 'ADODB', 'ADOR', 'System', 'System.Data', and a few other normal System references.

2) When I setup the Deployment Project, it appears that the references are correctly identified as dependencies (ADODB.dll, and Interop.ADOR.dll are both listed).

3) When I try to run my installer application on a different computer (w/o .NET installed, but after installing the .NET Framework), I get an error.

4) The specific error is: "The .Net Data OLE DB Provider (System.Data.OleDb) requires Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) version 2.6 or later. Version 2.53.6200.0 was found and currently installed)"

I did some research (by looking in references in VB6, since I couldn't find what I needed in .NET) and found the Microsoft Data Access Components is in odbcconf.dll. I tried including that as a file/assembly in my Development Project, but when I built the project, it gave me the following error: "WARNING: 'odbcconf.dll' should be excluded because its source file 'C:\WINNT\system32\odbcconf.dll' is under Windows System File Protection."

So, my question is, how do I get that file upgraded? Or maybe I'm looking at the wrong place? The funny thing is that, that very same DLL on my computer is version 2.52, and the project installs (using the 'Install' menu option under 'Project') and runs fine. The other thing I've tried to do is include the 'Database_Access.msn' merge module. That didn't work. BTW, all computers I've been working on/with are Win2000/SP3 machines.

I have searched the MS help, MSDN, and was searching other websites when I found this message board, so I apologize if the info is readily available somewhere on this website.

Paul

One more question... why does the Development project give an error about requiring the .NET Framework to be installed on the destination computer, but if I try to add the Merge Module associated with it, it gives me an error saying that it should be excluded?!

This is actually a common problem. .Net seems to work with version
2.7 of MDAC. All you have to do is run a search for MDAC 2.7 or later
on Microsoft web site. It is free to download. Install it on the client machine or
include it with your deployment files.


Hope this helps

Might as well install 2.8, that's the latest version. You can find it here. I downloaded a copy to our server so we can install as needed from there. Did the same thing for dotnetfx.exe (might've gotten that from the cd).