1. Dell Inspiron E1705 w/ Windows 7 RC x86
   
2. Dell Studio 16 XPS w/ Windows 7 RC x64 (happened with both 64-bit and 32-bit ODBC drivers, and with both 3.51 and 5.1 versions of each)

1. FLAG_FIELD_LENGTH: "Do not Optimize Column Width", and
2. FLAG_FOUND_ROWS: "Return Matching Rows

1. Go to MySQL.com and download the latest MySQL ODBC connector. As I write this it's 5.1.5. I used the 64-bit version, as I have 64-bit Vista.
   
2. Install the ODBC Connector. I chose to use the no-installer version. I just unzipped it and ran Install.bat at an administrator's command prompt. The MSI version probably works fine, but I did it this way back when I installed the 3.51 connector.
   
3. Verify the installation by opening your ODBC control panel and checking the Drivers tab. You should see the MySQL ODBC 5.1 Driver listed there. It seems to even co-exist peacefully with the older 3.51 version if you already have that. Additionally it coexists peacefully with the .NET connector if that is installed too.
4. At this point you will be doing what you've done to connect to a SQL Server database. All you need to know is what to use for a connection string.
5. Here's what mine looks like:
   <add name="MySqlDatabaseTest" connectionString="server=myservername;database=mydbname;uid=myusername;pwd=mypassword;driver={MySQL ODBC 5.1 Driver};option=3;" providerName="System.Data.Odbc" />
6. Of course you can set "name" to whatever you want.
7. If this is your only database, you can set it up as the defaultDatabase like this: <dataConfiguration defaultDatabase="MySqlDatabaseTest"/>
8. Access your data in your code like you always do! Here's a plain text sql example:

public List<Contact>
Contact_SelectAll()

{

    string sql =string.Format(@"

        select

            *

        from

            Contact

    ");


    List<Contact> contactList =new List<Contact>();

    Database db = DatabaseFactory.CreateDatabase("MySqlDatabaseTest");

    DbCommand dbCommand = db.GetSqlStringCommand(sql);

    using (IDataReader
dataReader = db.ExecuteReader(dbCommand))

    {

        while (dataReader.Read())

        {

            Contact contact =new Contact();

            contact.ID = (int)
dataReader["ContactID"];

            contact.FirstName = dataReader["ContactFName"].ToString();

            contact.LastName = dataReader["ContactLName"].ToString();

            contactList.Add(contact);

        }

    }


    returncontactList;

}