Week in Review: May 3, 2025

Just Published

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

Articles

^{*Article descriptions generated by Claude-3.7-Sonnet.}

Official Access Blog
- Access fixes released in Version 2503: This article details five bug fixes in Access Version 2503 (Build 18623.20156), including fixes for the Monaco SQL editor, text file imports, and SharePoint linked tables.
Access Forever
- The New Access Features in 2025, by Karl Donaubauer: A summary of new Access features presented at Access DevCon Vienna 2025, including command line code signing, Monaco SQL Editor improvements, source code control re-integration with Git, Modern Charts VBA support, and significant UI improvements like zooming and extended form/report size limits.
- Commercial Application for the Family Office, by Henk de Wolde (adapted by Maria Barnes): A showcase of MyPrivate Family Office, a comprehensive Access 365-based application with .NET integration designed for affluent families to manage personal and financial affairs on-premise, featuring document management, real estate support, ChatGPT integration, and Excel interfacing.
Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)
- Use Access to List Fields in Word: A brief announcement about an Access database tool with VBA that lists field information for Word documents, including page number, order, position, length, parameters, switches, and results.
Marcus Dieterle (LinkedIn Articles)
- Why help is so important and how we can make it MEGA easy!: A comprehensive guide on creating an integrated help system in MS Access that centralizes multiple help formats (PDFs, videos, web links, rich text) in a single table for easy management and user accessibility.
John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
- Expand / contract the selected VBA code: A demonstration of VBE_Extras commands for expanding and contracting code selections, allowing users to progressively select words, lines, blocks, and entire procedures using keyboard shortcuts (Alt+] and Alt+[).
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Simple vs Clever: Advocates for simpler, more maintainable code over complex, clever solutions that become difficult to update later.
- Using a Null Object pattern in VBA Polymorphic classes: Demonstrates implementing the Null Object pattern in VBA to handle cases where an object has no handler.
- Quoting big blocks of SQL with MZ-Tools: Shares a time-saving technique using MZ-Tools' regex search and replace to quote SQL blocks in VBA code.
- Simple Code Kata -- Reverse a string: Presents a coding exercise with test cases to create a function that reverses strings.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- VBA -- Opening Files and URLs: Explores multiple approaches for opening files and URLs in VBA, comparing their performance and implementation details.
- Adding Spell Check To Your Microsoft Access Forms: Provides methods for implementing spell checking in Access forms using both keyboard shortcuts and VBA automation.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Application Help Files : A collection of PDF help files explaining features of various commercial Access applications.
- Command Line Project Signing : Details the new command line switch for signing VBA projects automatically in Access 365.
- Access Command Line Switches (UPDATED) : A comprehensive and updated list of command-line switches available for Microsoft Access.
- AEU41: Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms : Announcement of upcoming Access features for zoom controls, responsive forms, and support for large monitor resolutions.
- AEU40: Orchestrating Access - Multi-App Automation : Explores techniques for automating workflows across multiple Access applications.
- Monaco SQL Editor Improvements Coming Soon : Preview of planned enhancements to the Monaco SQL editor including faster loading, partial query execution, and SQL formatting.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- News from the Access Team with Microsoft : Updates from the Access DevCon Vienna talk showcasing new features like SQL editor upgrades, form zooming, chart enhancements, and command-line signing.
- Throwback Thursday: May 1, 2025 : A retrospective look at VBA caching techniques and self-healing object variables for improved performance.
- VBE_Extras with John Mallinson : Introduction to VBE_Extras, a powerful add-in that modernizes and enhances the VBA editor with advanced productivity tools.

Videos‌

Karl Donaubauer (YouTube channel)
- Breaking Access News (10:43): Signing/Monaco/SCC/Charts
- Breaking Access News (09:13): Zooming and Extending Form/Report Size Limits
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #38 (16:54): Fix Parameter Prompts, Reference Subforms, Import PDF Data
- Zoom on Click (12:14): How to Open the Zoom Box Automatically with a Single Click
- Attachments (14:24): Attachment Data Type Explained: How to Use, Why Not To, Best Alternatives, Removal
- Toggle Hover (20:26): How to Fix Hover Color Not Working on Pressed Toggle Buttons
Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)
- The Best Approach To Reading Files In VBA (10:37)

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}^.

[May 07, 2025] Karl Donaubauer: Update, update...the company is in a state!
[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)
[June 04, 2025] Domenico Ruggiero: Orchestrating Office: Amplifying Access with Multi-Application Automation (JUST ADDED)
[July 02, 2025] Colin Riddington: Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms (NEW DATE–was 4 JUN 25)
[August 06, 2025] Pete Poppe: Faking ‘Non-Normal’ User Interfaces with Normal Data (JUST ADDED)
[September 03, 2025] Adam Waller: Topic TBD (JUST ADDED)
[October 01, 2025] Marcus Dieterle: Topic TBD (JUST ADDED)
[November 05, 2025] Aleksander Wojtasz: Topic TBD (JUST ADDED)

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-04-26) and this week (2025-05-03).

The roadmap was last updated on April 10, 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

JUN 2025: Add zoom slider magnification to Microsoft Access: Access will add magnification slider (10% to 500%) in lower right of the application, similar to the feature in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. It will also be keyboard accessible and available on the ribbon.
JUL 2025: Modernize Access Forms and Reports to work well on Large Format Monitors: Remove the 22-inch size limit and modernize Access forms and reports work well on large format monitors and provide responsive behavior for different form factors.

Rolling Out

None listed.

Launched

NOTE: Dates listed are rollout start dates.

AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements: A top ask from customers is to modernize Access charts and to support better data visualization in Access. To satisfy this user request, we are integrating a new charting package called “Ivy” into Access. Ivy is a charting package written by the Office DVX team that is currently used in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities: The Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code with standard IDE functionality such as syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, and autocomplete.

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)