Week in Review

Week in Review: January 18, 2025

Highlights include a new MouseWheel event bug in Access v2412, an exploration of connection strings in Access, and a deep dive into complex datatypes.

Mike Wolfe

Jan 18, 2025 • 5 min read

Just Published

^{This section includes videos, articles, and (occasionally) open-source project updates from the past 7 days.}

Articles

^{*Article descriptions generated by Claude-3.5-Sonnet.}

Access Forever
- Mousewheel Event Bug in Version 2412: Details a bug in Access version 2412 where the mousewheel event no longer functions properly, returning incorrect Page and Count values.
Ben Clothier (Access Experts)
- Understanding the Differences Between Access External Data, ODBC, and OLEDB Connection Strings: A comprehensive explanation of how Access external data, ODBC, and OLEDB connection strings differ in their structure and implementation.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- VBA Class initialization Options: Explores different approaches to initialize VBA classes, including custom initialization methods and the factory pattern.
- Creating libraries for Access: Discusses strategies for creating and maintaining reusable code libraries in Access while managing versioning.
- My tools for planning and doing work: Shares personal productivity tools and systems used for capturing ideas and managing tasks.
- Using Command Line switches with a launcher: Explains how to use command line switches to control Access application launches and automation.
- Launching an Access Application with update checks: Addresses issues with multiple application instances and proposes solutions using launcher applications with logging.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Microsoft Increases Its Microsoft 365 Consumer Plan Prices: Announces significant price increases for Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions, with details about included AI features.
- Renaming Macros in External Microsoft Access Databases Using VBA: Provides a VBA function to rename macros in external Access databases.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Complex Datatypes in Access: A comprehensive exploration of the nine complex datatypes available in Access and how they are managed internally.
- Database Object Types and Collections: An examination of how Access groups database objects in collections and manages object types using the ParentId field.
- Hide the Application Interface with No Code: A no-code approach to hiding the Access interface using minimized shortcuts, creating a more professional application appearance.
- Attached, associated, detached . . .: An analysis of deep hidden attached tables required for complex datatypes and issues with orphaned system tables.
- CDO EMail Tester: (UPDATED 12 Jan 2025 - new version with additional functionality)
- Attachment Field Issues: A detailed examination of attachment field limitations and problems, including database bloat and compatibility issues.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Bug Alert: MouseWheel Event Broken in Access Version 2412: A critical bug report about non-functional mousewheel events in Access version 2412 with workaround instructions.
- Throwback Thursday: January 16, 2025: A collection of articles exploring the value of learning multiple programming languages and incorporating their concepts into VBA.
- Converting ADP to ACCDB with Juan Soto: A guide to converting legacy ADP files to modern ACCDB format, covering technical considerations and best practices.
- Modern Chart Improvements with Maria Barnes: An overview of ten new chart types and improvements coming to Microsoft Access's visualization capabilities.
- Relationships and Indexes with Crystal Long, Kent Gorrell, & Adrian Bell: A deep dive into how relationships and indexes work differently between Access and SQL Server, including hidden indexes and migration considerations.

Videos‌

Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Round Up Cents (18:07): How to Round Up Pennies Automatically Like a Ferengi in Microsoft Access
- Job History, Part 1 (21:39): How to Show Most Recent Job History for Candidates in Microsoft Access
- Job History, Part 2 (21:20): How to Show Most Recent Job History for Candidates in Microsoft Access, Part 2
- Job History, Part 3 (16:14): How to Show Most Recent Job History for Candidates in Microsoft Access, Part 3
- ActiveControl (21:37): How to Use ActiveControl with ActiveForm to Know Where to Return a Value in Microsoft Access
Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)
- MouseWheel Bug (04:46): MouseWheel Bug in Microsoft Access 365 Version 2412
Nifty Access [Tony Hine, aka Uncle Gizmo] (YouTube channel)
- Generic Record Selector (03:49): Nifty Record Selector - Nifty Access

New to Me

^{This section includes content I discovered this week that has been around for awhile.}

Nothing new this week.

Upcoming Access User Group Events

^{NOTE: Only English-language user group meetings with scheduled guest speakers or topics are listed. For a complete list of upcoming events, visit the}^{Access User Group event calendar}^{. Not all links below include the start time and time zone. For that information, check out this handy reference guide from Access MVP Maria Barnes over at AccessForever.org:}^{Access User Groups 2025}^.

January 21, 2025: Steve Owen - All about table relationships
January 28, 2025: Maria Barnes - Using Dictionaries and Collections to work with JSON in Access
February 05, 2025: John Mallinson - Using VBE_Extras Add-In with Access
February 06, 2025: Adam Waller - Access Version Control
March 05, 2025; Alexander Denz - AI Assistants – Bring your knowledge to the smartest AI models
March 06, 2025: George Hepworth - Eliminating Magic Numbers in VBA
April 02, 2025: John Heaser - Source Control for Access & SQL Databases
April 10-11, 2025: Access DevCon Vienna (speakers TBA)
May 07, 2025: Colin Riddington - Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms
May 15, 2025 @ 9:30 am - 5:00 pm: In-person UKAUG 30th Anniversary Conference 2025, Imperial College London (Armen Stein, other speakers TBA)
June 04, 2025: Anders Ebro - Using Class Modules

Access Roadmap

No changes were made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-01-11) and this week (2025-01-18).

The roadmap was last updated on October 4, 2024. The development priorities were last updated at the German-language AEK conference on October 20, 2024.

Listed below is a snapshot of the official Access Roadmap.

"In Development", "Rolling Out", and "Launched" are Microsoft terms that I pulled straight from the public roadmap.

"Development Priorities" do not appear on the Access Roadmap. Instead, they get updated from time to time in official Access blog posts or Access engineering team presentations. I'll include a link to the source of the current development priorities as they get updated.

Development Priorities

The items listed below reflect Microsoft's order of priority and were published in the following article, Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '24 – March '25.

The items are listed in priority order according to Principal Engineering Manager Dale Rector. The "Expected Benefit" of each feature is shown in italics after the description of the feature itself.

New priorities added since the previous set of priorities are shown in bold below.

Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
Integrated source control: Simplifying the process of building mission critical Access solutions

Special thanks to Karl Donaubauer for posting the updated priorities at AccessForever.org.

In Development

SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities

Rolling Out

None.

Launched

AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements
NOV 2023: Making 32-bit Access Large Address Aware (LAA)

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

Here are the key end-of-life dates Access developers should track:

2029

[JAN 09] Windows Server 2019
[OCT 09] Access 2024 | Outlook 2024
[OCT 09 (or later)] Classic Outlook
- See "Edit 8/12/2024" at top of this article for official clarification that "both perpetual and subscription [i.e., MS 365] versions of Outlook will be supported until 2029"
- Support for Classic Outlook is guaranteed at least through 9 Oct 2029; it may be extended beyond this date

2030

[JAN 08] SQL Server 2019

2031

[OCT 14] Windows Server 2022

2033

[JAN 11] SQL Server 2022

2034

[OCT 10] Windows Server 2025

Ongoing

Microsoft 365 (with subscription)

Date TBD

Complete removal of VBScript from Windows OS (Microsoft Announces the Death of VBScript)