Bob,

Thanks very much. That has done the trick.

I was aware of the concept of late binding but had not realised the full
implications and so had not used it before, and certainly had not twigged
its relevance here.

Regards,
JPL

"Bob Phillips" wrote in message
...
Use late binding.

Dim oConn as Object
or
Dim oRS as Object

with

Set oConn = CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
or
Set oRS = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")


--

HTH

RP
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)


"JPL" <j.p.lxdsl.pipex.com wrote in message
...
Hi,

I have an Excel workbook that reads data from an Access database and
copies
it into spreadsheet tables. That works fine on my PC, but there is a
problem for anyone who has a different version of MDAC installed on their
PC. In this case, it fails immediately (i.e. before any of my code is
executed) with the awful error message "Compile error in hidden module".

A check to find the item (ADODB in this case) in
Application.VBE.ActiveVBProject.References works correctly for all OK
references, but is irrelevant if the reference is not OK because the
exception occurs before the code is called, and "Compile error in hidden
module" is reported anyway.

The check is in my Sub CheckRefs, which is called directly from
Workbook_Open; like Workbook_Open, the sub is in ThisWorkbook.

A similar check in Word - to ensure that the global template AddIn has
been
installed - works correctly provided that direct references to routines
in
the global template are avoided within routines in ThisDocument, i.e.
Document_New, Document_Open, etc. The exception can therefore be
controlled
in Word.

Is Workbook_Open the earliest event on which I can hang the code? The
documentation on MSDN says this occurs before Auto_Open.

Is there any technique by which references in Excel may be checked before
the exception for the missing reference is raised?

Regards,
JPL