I’m building a C# Winforms / .NET 3.5 / Visual Studio 2008 application that uses SQL Server Compact 3.5 SP1. After building a setup / msi project and deploying the app on a clean XP machine it works fine. However when I install it on a Vista 32 bit machine, I get the error below:
System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL 'sqlceme35.dll': The specified module could not be found
The app installs fine and the error happens when I run the .exe. In both cases the System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll file is in the application directory along with the exe. I’ve spent hours googling this trying to track down the problem. What I have found so far is that it’s a known issue on Vista 64 bit, but I can’t find anyone that has the issue on 32 bit Vista. After getting the problem on Vista I changed the target platform to x86 as people have suggested with the 64 bit problem, but tis didn’t fix the issue. SQL Compact 3.5 is 32 bit so I don’t see why this is happening on 32 bit Vista.
Ok haven’t had any official answer to this so gonna answer it myself, although @ErikEJ alluded to it in a comment. The problem was that I needed to package all the SQL CE dll files (listed below) and not just System.Data.SqlServerCe.dll. Once I did this the problem was sorted.