I have been developing an Access application utilizing two desktops (Win 7 Enterprise 64bit with Access 2013 64bit and Win 7 Home 64bit with Access 2016 Pro 64bit) and a laptop (Win 10 Home 64bit with Access 2016 Pro 64bit). I had prior to my encountering the problem I'm about to describe Office 2007 Enterprise 32bit on both "Home" computers. The databases that I'm developing incorporate multiple databases with multiple tables, with each database accessing the tables of the other "external" databases as "Linked" tables. Everything has been going fine (manually as well as programmatically opening the tables, whether linked or direct - i.e., not externalized).
And then I installed Office Pro 2016 64bit on both "Home" computers. Now I cannot, for the life of me, programmatically open ANY newly created linked table, getting the infamous 80040e37 error. I can access ALL the tables (old or new, linked or not) manually - i.e., double clicking on the table from within the database. And I can programmatically access ALL the tables (by all computers) which had been linked prior to the install of Office Pro 2016, but not so with ANY table linked after the install (from any of the computers). What's even more baffling is that I'm getting the 80040e37 for new tables linked and accessed by the vintage Access 2013, without Access 2016 being involved at all. I've even created two new databases with Access 2013, manually set up a link, and without Access 2016 being involved at all, still get the same error with Access 2013.
I've tried not only linking the tables manually, but programmatically as well, with the same results. I have reinstalled Office Pro 2016 to no avail. I've searched the Internet for clues and/or others experiencing the same problem, but to no avail. (And I cannot believe nobody else has stumbled on this same issue.)