I agree that it is strange.
'does not allow edits
'oPIV.ConnectionString = "Provider=MSpersist"
'oPIV.CommandText = "C:\owc\test.xml"
'does allow edits
oPIV.ConnectionString = "Provider=MicroSoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=C:\owc\owc_data.mdb;"
oPIV.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM test ORDER BY County,City;"
even though test.xml is persisted as keyset, batchoptimistic from the test table and can be updated as a normal ado recordset. I had previously tried to create a recordset object to open the xml file as keyset,batchoptimistic and assign it to oPIV.DataSource and it still cannot be updated.
But I still think there is a way.