How to programatically refresh linked tables through VB.net?

Question

I have an Access frontend with a lot of tables linked through ODBC to a MySQL backend. I have a VB.net application that sometimes adds columns to the tables in the backend, and when that happens, I need to refresh the link to the table in the frontend from the VB.net app to show the new columns.

I'll consider just about any solution as long as it doesn't require restarting MySQL or Access, and will allow me to refresh only the links I need to refresh (which I know in advance) as there are hundreds of links and tables in the frontend.

Answer 1

This should get you started:

Dim Con As New ADODB.Connection
Dim Cat As New ADOX.Catalog
Dim tbl As New ADOX.Table

Con.Open(m_sAccessDbPath)
Cat.ActiveConnection = Con

' Name the new Table and set its ParentCatalog property
' to the open Catalog to allow access to the Properties
' collection.
tbl.Name = m_sAccessDbTableName
tbl.ParentCatalog = Cat

' Set the properties to create the link.
tbl.Properties("Jet OLEDB:Create Link").Value = True
tbl.Properties("Jet OLEDB:Link Provider String").Value = RemoteDbPath
tbl.Properties("Jet OLEDB:Remote Table Name").Value = RemoteTableName

' Append the table to the Tables collection.
Cat.Tables.Append(tbl)

Source: http://bytes.com/topic/visual-basic-net/answers/370859-create-linked-table-access