Hi @Hui Liu-MSFT ,
I was able to solve the problem by re-building my project from scratch starting with a new Solution and new WPF app and class libraries starting in vs2022 .net 60. I then copied on the *.cs files, added the exact same nuget packages and re-referenced each class library. I kept the same namespaces but slightly altered my project names. It took some doing but it now at least deploys to the same target VM without the can't read manifest errors. I do get a database connect error after deployment, but that was expected.
I failed to mention in my original post that I started my project as a .net core 3.1 (vs2019) originally and migrated to .net 6.0. I did not realize that it was significant because my app has been running in .net 6.0 for some time now without problems. I may go back and compare all of the project files and see if I can find something specific, if so, I'll post it.
I hope this may help someone else.
Thanks so much for your help.