This problem is not directly related to target platform. Required component is not installed, that's it.
Now, about using the target platform, in a nutshell:
You can never mix up two different instruction-set architectures in one process. The solution might build but the application may crash during run-time. As a rule of thumb, you should always use "Any CPU" unless some third-party and/or unmanaged components requires any certain target. "Any CPU" is possible as assemblies are JIT-compiled, so the real unmanaged target is defined on the fly when an application is loaded.
How is it defined? When all the assembles of an application are compiled with "Any CPU", the run-time target is defined by that of currently running OS. If all the object libraries are compiled with "Any CPU" but the entry assembly (the one which has an entry point (
Main
by default) and defines which application to run, normally some *.EXE file) is compiled to target some certain instruction-set architecture, the entry assembly will define the resulting target architecture.
If any two assemblies loaded by the process (no matter how, including references and dynamically loaded assemblies) define two different instruction-set architectures, accept a crash during run time.
[EDIT]
Windows 64-bit platforms also support a 32-bit platform through WoW64,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WOW64[
^].
This is actually a 64-bit subsystem used to run 32-bit applications.
Even though 64-bit instruction-set platforms are not compatible with each other (x86-64 vs. IA-64 "Itanium"), they are compatible at the level of 32-bit based on WoW64. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64[
^],
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium[
^].
Sometimes a .NET application has to be run as 32-bit over WoW64, as not all of 64-bit (usually unmanages) components are available. An attempt to run this application compiled to "Any CPU" will result to running it as a 64-bit application. One way to run it over WoW64 is to recompile just the entry assembly to the instruction-set platform "x86".
—SA