<p>I've got mssql 2005 running on my personal computer with a database I'd like to run some python scripts on. I'm looking for a way to do some really simple access on the data. I'd like to run some select statements, process the data and maybe have python save a text file with the results.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, even though I know a bit about python and a bit about databases, it's very difficult for me to tell, just from reading, if a library does what I want. Ideally, I'd like something that works for other versions of mssql, is free of charge and licensed to allow commercial use, is simple to use, and possibly works with ironpython.</p>

I use
SQL Alchemy
with cPython (I don't know if it'll work with IronPython though).  It'll be pretty familiar to you if you've used Hibernate/nHibernate.  If that's a bit too verbose for you, you can use
Elixir
, which is a thin layer on top of SQL Alchemy.  To use either one of those, you'll need
pyodbc
, but that's a pretty simple install.
Of course, if you want to write straight SQL and not use an ORM, you just need pyodbc.