If that is more important to you than performance you might prefer this answer, especially if your update is a one off to correct some data. My server wont allow FROM to be used in an UPDATE statement. This may be a niche reason to perform an update (for example, mainly used in a procedure), or may be obvious to others, but it should also be stated that you can perform an update-select statement without using join (in case the tables you're updating between have no common field).