Accessing Databases Using Visual Basic
In this chapter of Visual Basic Essentials is intended to provide a detailed overview of developing applications that work with databases using Visual Basic and ADO.Net. As with most other aspects of Visual Basic and Visual Studio, Microsoft have put a significant amount of work into making it easy to work with databases. In fact, an incredible amount of database functionality can be built into a Visual Basic application without actually writing a single line of code.
The examples in this chapter work with a Microsoft Access database. The concepts covered, however, apply equally to other databases such as Microsoft SQL Server.
The chapter assumes that you have Microsoft Access installed together with the "NorthWind" sample Access database. This can usually be found in Program Files\Microsoft Office\Officenn\Samples\Northwind.mdb" (where nn signifies your version of Office). If you are unable to locate this database on your system it can be downloaded from [Microsoft's web site]
