As a learning project, I am trying to produce a asp.net MVC 4 application that links in with phpbb3 forum data tables on a mysql server and I have run into a rather large issue. I can not at all create a db connection to mysql within VSWD express 2010 in order to create an entity data model based on those tables. MySql simply does not appear in the list of sources when creating a new db connection. Theoretically i have a connection string that works just fine in the actual application, but no way to map the rather prolific phpbb3 tables within it to a model. Yes I have already downloaded and installed the mysql drivers/.net plugin. I may be new to MS MVC, but I have created applications professionally in java with struts/struts2, and in .net 2.0 with forms for many years now and have never run into a problem where my tools are so resistant to cooperation or googling for answers. Is there a way to fix this? Is there a way to work around this by creating the model some other way? Is there any way to develop MVC 4 in VS 2008 professional where mysql databases actually work? Has anyone tried importing a MVC 2 data model generated in VS 2008 into MVC 4 in VS 2010?
