This problem has me stumped. I personally feel this is poor planning
on MS part, but I am looking for a workaround.

I have a VBA add-in that I distribute that has a number of UDFs and
other functionalities. My most recent addition involves the SOLVER.XLA
add-in as a reference in the project. Depending on what version of
Office you are using, the location of this add-in will be in a
different place (THANK YOU, MS! BRILLIANT MOVE!). When I compile the
add-in with the correct path to Solver.xla and give it to someone that
has a different version of Office, I get this error message. I am
fully aware of late-binding and ensure that I use it as much as
possible to avoid just this sort of problem, but this issue with the
Solver add-in doesn't seem to have a solution a-la "late binding".

My application is password protected, so when an end-user opens Excel,
and the add-in tries to load, and Solver.xla is "missing", the end user
will first get the "Compile error in hidden module", and the add-in
stops loading.

How can I create an add-in that at least traps this error, and allows
corrective action? Ideally, I can control access to certain features
in the menus of the add-in based on the availability of the references,
and let the rest of the add-in work correctly.

From scanning all the posts on this subject, there does not appear to
be a good workaround.