change linked tables absolute paths to relative

Question

How do I do the above in MS Access 2003? I have a lot of linked tables with absolute paths, I want to remove the directory part of all paths to refer to current directory.

Answer 1

You cannot address relative with link tables.

However, in the case where I have a front end + back end in the same directory, then on startup I always check if the link is ok, if not, the code assumes the current dir and attempts to re-link. So this means that they can move the folder and that the end of the day relative addressing becomes a moot point since the application works if they ren-name the folder or move it.

The above works and ONLY makes sense for a non multi-user setup. For multi-user each user going to have a copy of the front end (you don't want multiple users in the same front end). Since that front end would be on each desktop and then you cannot assume or have any kind of relative addressing on the server side anyway.

So at the end of the day, relative addressing is not supported, but as pointed out in the cases(s) where you would use such addressing, you can simply have your code re-link. So you can always pull the full path name of Access, and you can always check for a existence of a dir above or below the current path and re-link if need be.

In the cases of linking to some server folder, then such addressing would not really make sense anyway and thus you are not likely going to miss this ability anyway.