Microsoft Access 2GB file size limitation and the Invalid Argument error message

Every time I ran “Make Table” in Access 2003 I got an “Invalid Argument” error message.

Google found the explanation in seconds:

Error message when you run an append query, run a make-table query, or import data in a large Access database file: "Invalid argument"

In Microsoft Access, when you try to run an append query, to run a make-table query, or to import data in a large Microsoft Access database file, you may receive the following error message:

Invalid argument.

This problem occurs when the size of the Access database file approaches the 2 gigabyte (GB) size limitation.

The limitation still exists in Access 2007.

Shades of the old DOS 640kb memory limits. Will we never escape those old 2**n boundaries?

Of course these kinds of meaningless error messages were impossible to decipher in the days before Google. It’s getting hard to remember how things worked back then …