It works now -- I forgot to put single quotes around a value in the query -- I had "WHERE name=targetname" instead of "WHERE name='targetname'"
Why that gave me the error I got I have no idea -- most programming languages give a query syntax error.
when you are opening recordsets, you will only get errors that the recordset can generate, rather than an error about interpreting the SQL statement. Glad it works!
Core 2 Duo w Radeon 4850, Droid Phone, Mits HD1000U projector