Tables not showing up when linking SQL Server to Access using ODBC connection I am learning to link the back end of a database in SQL Server express 2016 to the front end in Access 2016. The tables were originally in Access and then I exported them to SQL Server. Now I am attempting to link them to the front end in Access but the problem is that they are not showing up in the possible tables that I can link. The answers I found when searching this up was that I simply did not have permission, but I am on my laptop and there are no other users and I am using Windows Authentication. I am doing this using the Northwind sample database. The following shows that I only see the system tables as options when trying to link not the desired tables.

This shows the settings of my data source.
I know this was 8 months ago. Your problem may be that you did not select a default database. When linking, select the options button and select the database that is not appearing. I hope this helps.