DataReaders can only be used to bind in ASP.NET, not WinForms. They are a very efficient object to use for read-only access to data. The data is not persisted since only one row is read at a time. They are best used when you need to populate a control, like listboxes, grids, etc. and don't need to update this information.

>As I was trying to answer Rex's VB Datareader question I discovered I could directly bind a DataGrid to Datareader
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>DataGrid1.DataSource = dr;
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>I was going through the process of Opening the reader, constructing a dataset and then populating all of the rows. Who knew.
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>My question - Can all controls directly bind to a DataReader? Especially a DropDownList.
>TIA,
>Doug