I have a webpart which needs to use a native 32bit DLL for data access (the dll is Advantage.Data.Provider, for the Advantage Database Server DBMS.) As such I'm pretty sure I need to compile it as 32bit. However, my SharePoint server is 64bit.
If I compile the webpart project with platform target as x86, the webpart doesn't appear for me when trying to populate the web part gallery (_layouts/NewDwp.aspx).
(And if I compile the webpart with target 'Any CPU', the webpart appears in the gallery and I can add it, but when I try to add it to a page I get "Unable to load DLL 'ace32.dll'". I guess this is because it's running 64bit and trying to access a 32bit DLL.)
Can I use 32bit webpart in 64bit SharePoint? Or maybe there's another way around this?