how c# connects to databases

Correct me if I'm wrong. I think what ADO.NET does is that it creates an xml type of data that is pretty much similar to the contents of your database, say for example is the DataSet. Could be wrong though. Any clarrification or correction would be nice. :)

I would add that the only difference between the way ADO and ADO.NET work is that once the connection is closed in ADO.NET, the data is still there in the program. In ADO, recordset objects are closed and the data is gone unless you copy it somewhere manually. The database connections are the same. It is mostly the data on the client side that is different in ADO.NET.

yes its almost identical to ADO there is a connection object, there are datasets(recordsets like) and there are command objects.