UNION queries in Access 2007 SP2/Access 2010 fail with error 3360 "query is too complex". Worked fine in prior versions. Is there a fix?

Question

I've been using a few simple union queries with no problems in Access 2003 and then in Access 2007. With Access 2007 SP2/Access 2010, these queries now fail with error 3360 Query is too complex even when no filters are used. (OS doesn't matter - same problem on XP SP3 through Win7 64-bit). The same .mdb on earlier systems works without a problem. What's going on here?

If I change "UNION ALL" to just "UNION", the query works, but that's not an acceptable solution since a memo field is part of the query output and will be truncated.

What changed to break union queries? What is the fix?

I'd prefer to use temp tables only as a last resort.

Answer 1

I ended up on Allen Brown's site about 6 months ago. On his Converting to Access 2007 he had a forum link to http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-3803279-2.php

One workaround to try is to do a select * at the beginning of the Union Query at the front, i.e. with the selected fields:

SELECT qryUnion.*, qryUnion.FirstField, etc...