Relationships are key/foreign key relationships that Access uses to make default joins for you in certain contexts eg Query-by-Example Screen. These have no other substance until you create a query with a join. Access will use relationships to fill in certain field properties if you use wizards. You create joins at run-time and in doing so override anything in the relationships screen/diagram.
Referential Integrity Constraints are constraints that will be imposed by the database without you issuing any further coding. If you change the rules of your database you can't easily override these at run-time. Referential Constraints do not join tables. They simply ensure that information in related tables is consistent so they watch two or more tables but won't eg display information from a table just because you mention a table that shares a constraint .
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