This is not a restriction of the package wizard, but a general restrciton of
Vista. Even worse, to get aroudn the locked up program files, Vista will in
fact Virtualize the program files directory. What this means is that for
compatibility purposes, and for security reasons, even if your programs do
in fact start writing to the program files directory, vista actually makes a
virtualized copy and dir attached to the "user" to preserve and
protect the actual the original files installed. What this really means is
then if you actually were to physically copy another access database file to
the directory, you would actually not be able to update the file, but only
be updating a ***copy*** of it. You are for the most part NOT allowed to
make changes to the program dir.

To make a really long complex story short, if you need a writable file, you
cannot install it reliably in the program directory. Simply put, being able
to write into the program directory is what virus heaven is all about.
Allowing user code to update and write data to the program files directory
is a complete thing of the past.

I should point out that several years ago some of my clients had already
locked down the program directory files even in Windows XP, and I found my
access applications failing quite rapidly (in fact, they stopped install
altogether).

In other words, it's not a new thing that some companies and
organizations have 100% locked down any updates to the program directory
area, even with windows xp. The program dir file is considerd fresh meat
for virus stuff, and thus it simply not alloed anymore.

Thus, you have two choices:

Use the application data dir

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data

So, you wind up with a path like:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
Data\Custmailing\CustomersMailingList.mde

It is not a package wizard issue, it is a issue of security. If you don't
like the application data dir, then your idea to use a c:\directory is quite
a good idea.

Whath are you talking bat.