Week in Review

Week in Review: January 25, 2025

Highlights include a new release of Rubberduck VBA, how to create forms wider than the current 22" limit, and using Azure to create a data ingesting pipeline.

Mike Wolfe

Jan 25, 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 DeepSeek-V3.}

Mathieu Guindon (Rubberduck VBA)
- Pre-Release: 2.5.92.x: Announcing the pre-release of Rubberduck 2.5.92.x, including new inspections, unit testing enhancements, and project updates.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- SQL Server query to check for normalization in row columns: Explains how to use SQL Server queries to identify mismatched data in row columns for normalization purposes.
- SQL field value swapping: Demonstrates a method to swap numeric field values in SQL using the Switch function.
- Custom tags for form controls – considering usage options: Explores potential implementations for custom tags in form controls for resizing purposes.
- Custom tags for form controls – the idea: Introduces the concept of custom tags for form controls to store additional metadata.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Retrieving Email Header Information in Outlook Using VBA – Part 2: Extends the discussion on extracting email header properties using VBA’s PropertyAccessor.
- Microsoft Answers Forums Down!: Reports on the temporary downtime of Microsoft Answers Forums and its implications.
- Run a VBA Procedure in an External Microsoft Access Database: Provides a VBA function to execute procedures in an external Access database.
- Retrieving Email Header Information in Outlook Using VBA: Explains how to extract email header information using VBA in Outlook.
- Create a Smart Folder Monitoring System Using PowerShell’s FileSystemWatcher: Shows how to use PowerShell’s FileSystemWatcher to automate folder monitoring and response actions.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Use ActiveForm to get the Previous Form: Learn how to track and return to the calling form in Access using Screen.ActiveForm and OpenArgs.
- Create Forms Wider Than the Access Limit: Discover how to bypass Access's form width limit using datasheets, modern charts, and anchoring techniques.
- Is Location Trusted . . . and does it matter?: Explore the importance of trusted locations in Access and how to check if your app is trusted.
- Modern Charts 3 - VBA Support (Article in Progress): Stay updated on the latest VBA support for modern charts in Access, including new properties and runtime modifications.
- Sort Value Lists: Understand how to sort value lists in combo boxes, listboxes, and table lookup fields using VBA.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Cached ODBC Connections with SSO with Ron McCarry: Discover a secure approach to SQL Server access using cached ODBC connections and single sign-on (SSO) in Access.
- Throwback Thursday: January 23, 2025: Revisit key insights on the differences between Jet's IIf() and VBA's IIf() functions.
- Drag and Drop: Behind the Scenes with Alessandro Grimaldi: Learn how to implement drag-and-drop functionality in Access using pure VBA and class-based architecture.
- Developing COM Add-ins with Phillip Stiefel: Explore the basics of creating COM add-ins for Access to extend its development environment with custom tools.

Videos‌

Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)
- All About Table Relationships (01:15:22): with Steve Owen
- Data Ingesting Pipeline from Azure IOT Hub to Azure SQL DB (51:37): with Roy Kim
Alessandro Grimaldi (YouTube channel)
- Happy 2025! (05:23): Update on current, recent, and future projects, including two books and a sneak peek at a possible Access DevCon 2025 presentation.
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Date Problems (19:04): Got Date Format Problems in Microsoft Access? Switch to Proper Date Functions.
- Quick Queries #24 (21:43): Microsoft Access Quick Queries #24: Close All VBA Windows, DropDown Issue, My Youthful Profile Pic
- DoCmd.OpenForm (19:06): How to Use DoCmd.OpenForm in Microsoft Access and What All the Parameters Mean
- Round Up Cents, Part 2 (16:15): Round Up Cents: How to Round Up Pennies Automatically Like a Ferengi in Microsoft Access, Part 2

New to Me

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

Nothing new this week.

Select Open Source Projects: New Releases

Rubberduck

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 28, 2025: Maria Barnes, Neil Sargent, and Leo theDBguy - Using Collections and Dictionaries to work with JSON in Access (PRESENTERS JUST UPDATED)
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
March 28, 2025: Access Day: In-person conference in Redmond, WA (Mike Wolfe, other speakers TBA) (JUST ADDED)
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 (2025-01-18) and this week (2025-01-25).

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)