>It may not be the first step… but it's progressing.
I've just purchased a book for $40 entitled: Microsoft ADO.NET 2.0 – Step By Step
Building Database Applications in .NET 2.0

I was attempting to teach myself via the examples and forums on the web. Unfortunately I was mixing the 3 different ways of doing things and twisting myself up in my own inferences about what was needed as a basic groundwork. I was setting it up programatically then dragging and dropping, and apparently the drag and drop adds extra bits (table adapters) that interfere with the programatic way I was attempting to do things.

I'll post a link to the forum post I started, and also post the solution I've come to once I can explain it in my own words. I like learning from a book, it's usually fairly straight forward given a good text. There was an ADO 2.0 – learn in 24 hours book which I would have rathered, but this one was the only one B&N had in-store.

Adventures in programming. I don't like DB programming, I like fun programming, but fun programming is funner when you've got a useful database built into it. *sigh*