title: Force a default datetime format in ms access
body: <p>I'm currently porting a Access 2003 app to use a SQL Server 2005 back-end, and I'm having trouble with the datetime representations.</p>
  
  <p>As I understand it, the default Access behavior is to use the datetime format defined on the local machine's regional settings, as do SQL-Server.  Is there a way to force Access to use another default format (other than those available in the "Format" property dropdown list), something like Format = "dd/mm/yyyy"?</p>
  
  <p>My problem is that a good many forms in the app have sub-forms whose data is linked to the parent via relation implying datetime and numeric values (terrible design, I know.)</p>
  
  <p>Now, when retrieving the data, the date will print ok, using a yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss format, but I cannot make new entries, or inserts from the forms as SQL server will complain that the text-data overflowed the capacity for a datetime, or that the engine cannot find the parent record.</p>
  
  <p>I'm using a file-based DSN to connect to the backend.  </p>
  
  <p>Thanks for any insight in the matter,
  Pascal</p>