I always thought that doing an update from a inner SQL, such as a massive update, was requiring the UPDATE line to use an alias. Basically, I always did something like this:

UPDATE TemporaryName
SET TemporaryName.MyField=5
FROM ParentTable AS TemporaryName
LEFT JOIN StatusTable ON TemporaryName.PrimaryKey=StatusTable.NoParentTable
WHERE something

But, if we do not use an alias, will this work as well:

UPDATE ParentTable
SET ParentTable.MyField=5
FROM ParentTable AS TemporaryName
LEFT JOIN StatusTable ON TemporaryName.PrimaryKey=StatusTable.NoParentTable
WHERE something

Because, when using an alias under SQL Anywhere, this does not work. In order to work with SQL Anywhere, we have to use the name of the table as is. Does this mean the alias usage is not SQL ANSI standard and that would be something that SQL Server would support by itself?