Do I need to upgrade from .NET Standard version?

I've done some simple VB, VBA, VBscript and Jscript, but for the most part am a OO novice, and new to .NET. I have VB.NET 2002 Standard and would like to use it to access data on our host, which happens to be an IBM e-server iSeries (AS/400). When attempting to create a DB connection, it appears as if it is going to work fine. The IBM AS400 OLE DB is listed as a provider, and it appears as if the "test connection" is successful. After hitting O.K. to proceed, I am told that the connection was unsuccessful, and that "it is only possible to connect to SQL Server Desktop Engine databases and Microsoft Access databases with this version of Visual Studio." What exactly does this mean? Is there a specific add-on that I need, or do I have to purchase the entire Visual Studio .NET suite? Or, am I just missing a step(s) in configuring the connection?

Since I have never loaded or used the standard edition (it is basically a learning edition), I am making some assumptions here. I believe you would need at least the Professional edition and possibly the Enterprise Developer edition to connect to the host. If this is the thrust of what you are doing, it would be quite advisable to move up to the Enterprise Developer or higher version.