I expect you're probably unlikely to find any books dealing in any great detail with Access and SQL Server 2005 (Express or any other edition) before the release of the next version of Access. As for books on Visual Studio, they are countless. There are some books that try to give a high-level overview of VS and the .NET _frame_work, and then there are books that get into more depth by concentrating on specific types of apps such as Windows Forms apps, or ASP.NET Web Forms apps, or mobile apps. What kind of .NET apps are you planning to develop? Whatever aspect of .NET most interests you, you're bound to find something at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/books/ and I have to say the standard of Microsoft Press books is quite high - I don't think I've ever read a really bad book published by Microsoft Press, which is more than I could say for some other publishers.

I'm looking into using SQL Sever Express as a backend for my Access DB and I'm also interested in using Visual Studio to help me handle development. � Any suggestions on books that could help teach me? SQL Server is reasonable enough in some situations. �But Visual Studio? � That'll increase your development time by at least 50% and maybe three or four times as long. Tony