Access 2003 – Importing Queries results in bad query aliasing.

This is a quick little tip.

I came across a minor annoyance the other day when I was importing Access saved queries from another database and using link tables. If you import your queries before you link your tables, then try run the queries with no tables link – Access will complain that it can’t find the tables, then litter your queries that use those linked tables with aliases like “expr1:” “expr2:” and so on. This means that if you use a lot of saved queries you’re going to waste valuable time fixing them all up.

The trick is very simple and, when you think about it, does make sense – link your tables before you import anything.