Datasheet

Displaying Data on the Web
27
Throughout this book, the code samples and text will assume that MSDE is being used as the data
provider, with the Northwind database (which is included with it) acting as the data source. To ensure
that the code in the book will all function correctly, the next section details the installation of MSDE.
All of the features that MSDE supports are also supported by SQL Server. The
converse is not true, however; some of the richer functionality of SQL Server is not
present in MSDE. However, none of this functionality is required for any of the code
in this book to operate correctly.
Obtaining and Installing MSDE
When Visual Basic .NET (or any of the various Visual Studio .NET products) is installed, an item called
Microsoft .NET Framework SDK is added to your Start | Programs menu. Beneath this is an item called
Samples and QuickStart Tutorials; if you select it, this is what you'll see: