MSVC# seems to be lacking the DB option in data sources. I've no idea. The folks in #gamedev seemed knowledgable and offered the solution, which of course didn't solve the problem. I'm not going to go through and reinstall my entire dev environment just to toy with SQL, and I'm too fed up with it to hunt for alternatives just so I can learn the 'wrong' way to do it.
This afternoon or evening I hope to write up serverside message handling to get warmed up for a dev interview tomarrow morning. Good opportunity, though unique as they seem to be looking for really entry level people. I imagine that not a few end up as pink slip fodder just to get to the good ones. That or the work is really code monkey-ish. Eh, still better than QA-monkey.