I tried to launch two versions of 3DC today, and I got a non-3DC dialog reporting a missing DAO.msi file. It expected to find the file in a C:\Documents & Settings\Owner\Local Settings\Temp\_is80\ folder. No such folder exists presently on my PC or in a month-old comprehensive backup.

I searched this forum for some help and found only a statement that 3DC would not run if DAO (Data Access Object) was not present.

I found some Microsoft documentation regarding missing .msi files (including DAO), and it was encouraging. It said that MS Office Repair facilities would restore any Office-related (which includes DAO) .msi files. It didn’t. I broadened my search to the web and found the following:

Via Start/Run, unregister DAO 3.6 with:
regsvr32 /u “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DAO\dao360.dll”

Then, re-register it with:
regsvr32 “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\DAO\dao360.dll”

Immediately following this information in the forum where I found it were a half-dozen or so happy testimonials. It worked for me too.

I post these two incantations here, hoping that it will save some poor slob like me a couple of hours of hunting. I have no idea what caused the problem in the first place, although I did see a bunch of evidence on the web that others had this problem due to a troublesome ATI driver. (I do have an ATI graphics adapter.)

My opinion it is related to the ATI drivers. But, I can't say for certain. I know that ATI intalls this with at least some of its older drivers. They may be removing it without checking if other programs using it.