I have a 3-tier .NET 2.0 app. The presentation layer references the middle tier. The middle tier references the database layer. For some reason, when I compile, the dll's for the data layer appear in the bin of the presentation layer. How do I stop this?
The only way to stop this is to make one or more of your tiers a service-layer (or something similar) to physically separate your tiers.
Since your separate tiers were compiled against each other the assemblies need to be there for the entire application to function properly. How do you envision the application working without all the assemblies?