We're From Microsoft and We're Here to Help You

This would be easier, I understand, if the version of our software that I was trying to compile was being compiled with Visual Studio 2010 instead of Visual Studio 2005. But it isn't and so here I am.

Microsoft goofed in a big way when they issued revisions to the MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Classes) with Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1 that made applications that were compiled on those systems incompatible with earlier versions of Windows. *oops* And it took them a long time to figure out how to fix it. But a fix has been issued.

And if you're compiling your application on the newer versions of the OS, you need to include a line that says "#import "MSADO28.tlb" to be able to work on all supported versions of Windows.

Unfortunately, if you're compiling your application on an older version of the OS, you need to include a line that says "#import "MSADO15.dll".

These are notably different lines.

And we have a mix of machines where we do development and builds that have different versions of the OS installed.

I have figured out a way to work around this in Visual Studio 2005, but it's distinctly less than pretty.

*sigh*