I know that the intended database environment for this question was SQL Server so the answer is yes, however if running T-SQL against an Access database, the answer is no. To me technically, the correct answer is 'depends' yes. (Corrected) I just did the research and discovered that T-SQL is SQL Server specific. Access uses JET SQL. I maintain applications that can run against either sql server or access and share 95% of the sql statements. Update queries against joined tables is one area that I have to be specific to the target database.