>Hi Viv,
>
>Thanks for the info. It helps give me some perspective. I guess it means the XML file is critical at run-time. I'll see when I test a deployment. :)

Doesn't look like anyone helped you out on the MM.NET aspect so my info is probably of limited use. The key thing to understand is that the EF 'connection string' contains not only the basic SQL connection settings but also pointers to the three pieces of XML that define the entire EF model.

If you open the Properties tab from the EDMX designer you can change the 'Metadata Artifact Processing' option to specify that the model info is written to separate, external XML files rather than being embedded in the DLL - but unless you have specific reasons for this it's simpler to go with the default.
If you need to plug an alternate SQL source into the EF connection string you can do so simply by using the EntityConnectionStringBuilder class:

EntityConnectionStringBuilder esb = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder(s);
esb.ProviderConnectionString = stdSQLConn;
EntityConnection ec = new EntityConnection(esb.ConnectionString);

where s is the EF connectionstring and stdSQLConn is the replacement connection.