thanks for much for replying Neil,
I do in fact have Desktop installed on my machine and all my clients do to. I have the .Net SDK installed also, is there another SDK just for desktop?? I was not aware of this, maybe that is the issue. I can't use the FeatureclasstoFeatureclass, because what I need to do is specifically export the featureclass data as a table and I don't think anything does this except for Iexportoperation. I actually tried to use FeatureDataConverter, which works to some degree but requires fields being added and copied and got really messy. as for using the Windows Dialog, I did try that and it was also messy especially when the user had to select Grids, there is no filter for that. I know this can be done, because some people have said it is doable, but I am missing something integral with the binding of licenses I think.
I thought ESRI was going to encourage Engine not discourage working with it.