Accel Pack FA-18 & simconnect.dll

I have read through many of the FA-18 posts and found a few of them dealing with the same problem I have: can't get the MFDs and HUD to come on. The solutions all seem to revolve around the simconnect.dll file. What is the deal with this file? Should I have it? Should I get a different version? I looked in the appropriate folder and while I do have the Windows/winxsx/x86...simconnect_...folders, there is nothing in them. So is this my problem? Should this .dll file be in one of those folders or are they suppose to be empty?