Thanks guys it's slow making more sense.
Sorry if it's not strictly Delphi Aphton but I'm finding the DLLs/paths issues are more of an issue than the code itself :p
It seems the ace32.dll and adsloc32.dll from my Windows/system32 are required in the .exe directory upon execution anywhere (though weirdly the .exe can run by itself in some locations on my PC).
My ace32 and adsloc32 are both about 50% larger than the standard ones on the clients PC and the coding PC which is usually used to compile/build any apps (my company sells membership/till software but no longer have original programmers :p).
I believe this is to do with me having installed either a newer version of AdsDataSet or AdsServer than our software was designed on.
I replaced my ace32 and adsloc32 with the standard ones so that I could compile apps which run on ANY of our clients computers, but the 'Advantage' tab disappeared from my component panel.
When I try to add the TAdsDataSet component
package guess what it tells me: "procedure entry point AdsGetDataLength could not be located in
dll Ace32".
In this case I can just ship out my ace32.dll no problem but in future -
Perhaps I need to try install an old version of TAdsDataSet?
or should I just compile/build all apps on the coding PC to avoid compatibility issues?
Thanks again