Sql Server Compact Edition is promoted by MS as one way to maintain persistent local datasets that won't hog memory- IOW the sort of stuff for which you'd use a cursor or large static lookup dbf in VFP. It has some interesting characteristics: basic password security, tables stored in a single file, no Stored Procedures...
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
