MS Access: FIX: Left function doesn't work

I have an old Access database. I found that a lot of scalar functions didn't work in it. I tried something simple like this:

select left(l_name, 15)
  from test_table

and got this error:

Undefined function 'left' in expression.

I hit alt-F11 to bring up the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) IDE, and immediately got this error message:

Your Microsoft Office Access dataabse or project contains a missing or broken reference to the file 'MSOWC.DLL' version 1.0

I check my references (tools->references) and saw an entry: "MISSING: Microsoft Office Web Components" which referenced the file "C:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/OFFICE10/MSOWC.DLL"

I went looking for the file-- the first thing I found out was that, althought I have an OFFICE10 directory, I'm running Office 2003 out of OFFICE11. There was no corresponding DLL in the OFFICE11 directory.

I simply unclicked the MISSING reference, saved the file, and it all works fine now. I suspect that the missing file is unneeded in 2003.