Interesting concept, but as the article didn't present it with much in the way of specifics, it's too risky for me to hope to get it right. As I can't even see the 32-bit Access DB Engine even in the 32-bit ODBC Administrator (at least as an OLE DB Provider, anyway), not sure it would do any good.

In any case, I decided to rehost the data into the SQL instance from the Access DB, and that eliminates the need for the linked server that goes FROM SQL to ACCESS, and instead, I can just run my query on the SQL instance without the linked server, as the table is now local to the instance.

Based on all the things I ran across - and the number of posts in various places decrying MS's apparent failure to understand the needs of their customers (or, perhaps, at the minimum, considerable failure to explain either their reasoning or the proper suggested alternative), I have to conclude that MS is primarily at fault for this conundrum. Not much point in creating 64-bit software if you're going to invalidate the 32-bit stuff we all still HAVE to use - especially when in this case, you're forced to choose one or the other (Office 32-bit vs. Office 64-bit), instead of being able to have a practical migration path. Oh well... problem worked around...

Thanks for all the help, folks. Much Appreciated...