doesn't microsoft provide some sort of update to msvc6 that
allow programmers to have functionality such as this? or do I
have to move to .NET?

In the meantime i can simply convert my databases as they
are only going to be available to the prog and not the client.

If using .NET is the only solution, is the version of C++
which is included comparable to MSVC6.0's implementation?
I don't care for any of that .NET, C# cross-coding capability.