If the workstations have never had mdac installed 2.8 will not help. i had to install 2.5 with the full install and then upgrade to 2.8. Now it's back to the drawing board. have NT and 2000 machines that i have to install this on and needs admin rights to install. Seems like it always get back to installing software with admins rights. I think i will start to investigate that more. Thanks for all your help on this problem.