Week in Review

Week in Review: March 15, 2025

Highlights include key info for automating email sending outside of Outlook, integrating AI add-ins with Access, and returning the results of cmd commands.

Mike Wolfe

Mar 15, 2025 • 6 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.}

Luke Chung (FMS Blog)
- Download Microsoft Office 2024 Setup Files: A guide to download Office 2024 setup files using the Office Deployment Tool instead of direct installation.
Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)
- Use Access to Show or Hide in Word: An Access form that uses VBA to control visibility of various Word features without navigating through ribbons.
John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
- Sometimes it's just the little things - #4: Tasks (aka TODOs): How VBE_Extras adds "TODO" style task functionality to the VBA editor, displaying a filterable list of all tasks in your project.
- Sometimes it's just the little things - #5: Restore cursor location when opening a VBA Project: VBE_Extras can save and restore your cursor position when reopening VBA projects, saving time and improving workflow.
- Sometimes it's just the little things - #6: Restore values for Conditional Compilation Arguments defined in the Project Properties dialog: VBE_Extras can now store and restore Conditional Compilation Arguments values when reopening VBA projects.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Test Driven Development (TDD) and Forms in Microsoft Access: An update on implementing TDD in Access using dictionaries to mimic form fields for testing without loading the actual form.
- Using RecordsAffected with DAO: How to retrieve the number of records affected by SQL queries in Access using the RecordsAffected property with DAO.
- Class Module InputSimulatorForArray: A class module that simulates VBA's Input and InputLine functions using arrays instead of files.
- Using an Access file as a VBA reference: A collection of resources about using Access databases as reference libraries for other Access applications.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Outlook Blocked Senders Junk Mail List: A comprehensive list of domain-level entries that can be imported into Outlook's Blocked Senders feature to reduce unwanted emails.
- Get Notified When A Process Starts Using PowerShell: PowerShell scripts to monitor and get notifications when specific processes start on your computer, with options for displaying alerts or logging to files.
- How to Address Corruption in Microsoft Access Databases: A detailed guide on identifying and resolving corruption issues in Microsoft Access databases through various methods including Compact and Repair, importing objects, and third-party recovery tools.
Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
- Show/Hide in Word from Access: An Access form with VBA code that interacts with Word to quickly show or hide various elements like field codes, bookmarks, nonprinting symbols, and more.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Beyond the Send Button: How Your Emails Actually Reach Their Destination: A fundamental explanation of email infrastructure including IP addresses, DNS, and email servers to help Access developers implement alternatives to Outlook automation.
- Why Your Emails Get Blocked: Security Protocols and Deliverability Explained: An in-depth explanation of email security protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and how they affect deliverability as developers transition away from Outlook automation.
- Throwback Thursday: March 13, 2025: A weekly feature highlighting older articles about VBA's Enum statement with links to various resources about using enumerations effectively.
- Troubleshooting Access Applications with Ben Sacherich: A recap of an Access User Group presentation that shares systematic approaches to troubleshooting Access applications based on 25 years of experience.

Videos‌

Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)
- AI Assistants – Bring your knowledge to the smartest AI models (01:11:26): with Alexander Denz
- Eliminating Magic Numbers in VBA: Transitioning Projects from One Developer to Another (01:17:30): with Tom van Stiphout and Kim Young
Crystal Long (YouTube channel)
- Show or Hide in Word from Access using VBA (10:23)
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #31 (17:29): Microsoft Access Quick Queries #31: Microsoft Access Not Working, String Parameter Errors, More!
- Toggle Close Button (14:38): How to Enable or Disable the Close Button on a Microsoft Access Form at Runtime Using VBA
- Immediate Window (14:24): Using the Immediate Window in Microsoft Access VBA - Debugging, Testing, and Quick Commands
- Access Day (01:53): Microsoft Access Day: March 28, 2025 in Redmond, Washington. Meet Access MVPs (and me!)
- Numbered Form Items (13:38): How to Automatically Number List Items in a Form in Microsoft Access
- Numbered Report Items (09:27): How to Automatically Number List Items in a Report in Microsoft Access
- Access Developer 49 (05:05): Microsoft Access Developer 49: Transactions, Dynamic Temp Tables, Button Navigation Subform

New to Me

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

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}^.

March 28, 2025: Access Day: In-person conference in Redmond, WA (Speakers: Mike Wolfe, Peter Doering, George Young, Luke Chung, Kevin Bell, the Access Dev Team)
April 02, 2025: Anders Ebro - Using Class Modules in Access
April 10-11, 2025: Access DevCon Vienna (Agenda - Registration - Speakers: Access Dev Team, Karl Donaubauer, Maria Barnes, Philipp Stiefel, Adam Waller, Colin Riddington, John Mallinson, Mike Wolfe, and more 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 (Speakers: Armen Stein, Andrew Richards, Anders Ebro, Stuart Massey, Chris Arnold, Peter Bryant, Rod Gordon)

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-03-08) and this week (2025-03-15).

The roadmap was last updated on March 4, 2025. 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

None listed.

Rolling Out

None listed.

Launched

NOTE: Dates listed are rollout start dates.

AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements
SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities

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)