To change some properties, what Access has to do 'behind the scenes' is to
create a new temporary field with the desired properties, copy all the data
from the old field, possibly converting data types in the process, delete
the old field, and rename the new field with the same name as the old one.
With 400,000 records, that's going to take time, and it's going to take disk
space. So I'd advice first make sure you have plenty of free disk space, and
then leave the operation running over night, or at least over a lunch break.
--
Brendan Reynolds (MVP)
http://brenreyn.blogspot.com
The spammers and script-kiddies have succeeded in making it impossible for
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