Week in Review

Week in Review: February 1, 2025

Highlights include exploring VBA error handling scenarios, a native VBA dictionary replacement, and the Rubberduck VBA style guide.

Mike Wolfe

Feb 1, 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 (Fixed), by Colin Riddington (UPDATED): Documents a bug and its fix where mousewheel events stopped working properly in Access version 2412.
Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)
- Change 365 Version: Provides step-by-step instructions for rolling back Microsoft 365 to a previous version when encountering issues.
Mathieu Guindon (Rubberduck VBA)
- Website Update: It's Live!: Announces the launch of a modernized rubberduckvba.com website with improved features and infrastructure.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Access function to return SQL Server record set using passthrough query: Demonstrates how to create a function for retrieving SQL Server recordsets using passthrough queries.
- Nested Error Handling – Example code and what happens: Explores various scenarios of nested error handling in VBA with detailed examples.
- VBA Class errors and Break in Class Module option: Explains how the "Break in Class Module" option affects error handling behavior in VBA classes.
- More VBA Error handling scenarios using Err.Raise: Investigates different error handling behaviors when using Err.Raise in nested procedures.
- Drop in Native VBA (No references needed) Scripting.Dictionary replacement: Introduces a native VBA replacement for Scripting.Dictionary that doesn't require external references.
- Custom tags for form controls – the case to use them for: Explores using custom tags for storing form control positioning data and other metadata.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Using the File System Object (FSO) to Check if a Folder has an Attribute: A function to test if a specific attribute is set for a folder using the FileSystemObject.
- Using the File System Object (FSO) for Retrieving Folder Attributes: A function to get and list all attributes of a specified folder including Read-Only, Hidden, System, and more.
- Locking the Keyboard and Mouse Input Using VBA: A guide on using the BlockInput API to temporarily disable user keyboard and mouse input in VBA applications.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Show Color Dialog: A function to display a standard Windows color selector dialog for use in Access applications.
- Modern Charts 3 - VBA Support (Article in Progress): A comprehensive guide on using VBA code to set modern chart properties in Access, including new features available in the Beta Channel.
- A Tutorial in Automatic Form Resizing - Page 4: An in-depth guide covering new features in automatic form resizing including support for high resolution monitors, portrait displays, and dynamic form stretching.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Runtime Ribbon Changes with Adrian Bell (NeoPa): Demonstrates how to dynamically modify the Access ribbon at runtime using command bars without XML manipulation.
- Throwback Thursday: January 30, 2025: Explores the concept that software bugs have varying levels of severity and cost to fix, with syntax errors being easiest and logic errors being most difficult.
- Understanding Context Length: 5 Techniques for Maximizing AI Chat Effectiveness: Presents five strategies for managing AI chat context windows more effectively, including focused conversations and strategic prompt management.
- When to Use SQL Server with Juan Soto: Provides guidance on when to upgrade Access databases to SQL Server, considering factors like scalability, security, and implementation complexity.
- Control Tip Text with Greg Regan: Shows how to create more responsive and visually appealing tooltips in Access forms using standard controls instead of the built-in Control Tip Text feature.

Videos‌

Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #25 (29:09): Microsoft Access Quick Queries #25: Access End of Life, Forms to Reports, Try It, and More!
- Reverse Status Box (18:14): How to Flip the Status Box in Microsoft Access So New Messages Appear on the Bottom
- Duplicate Record Macro Broken! (16:51): Fixing the Duplicate Record Macro Error in Microsoft Access Paste Isn't Available Command Fix
- Distribute Text (18:25): How to Use Distribute Text Alignment in Microsoft Access Forms and Reports for Even Column Text
- Customer Report (22:37): How to Convert Your Microsoft Access Customer Form to a Report in Minutes
- Access Developer 48 (06:49): Copy Records from Any Table Without Specifying Indexed Fields
Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)
- VBA - Creating a Zip File (13:27)

New to Me

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

Rubberduck Style Guide, by Mathieu Guindon

Select Open Source Projects: New Releases

Rubberduck
- v2.5.92.6353-pre

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}^.

February 05, 2025: John Mallinson - Using VBE_Extras Add-In with Access
February 06, 2025: Adam Waller - Access VCS Add-in – Highlights along the Journey (TITLE JUST UPDATED)
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)
~~April 02, 2025: John Heaser - Source Control for Access & SQL Databases~~ (JUST REMOVED)
April 02, 2025: Anders Ebro - Using Class Modules in Access (RESCHEDULED from 4 JUN 25)
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~~ (RESCHEDULED to 2 APR 25)

Access Roadmap

No changes were made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-01-25) and this week (2025-02-01).

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)