Week in Review

Week in Review: October 25, 2025

Highlights include API calls for a better MsgBox, creating a modern toggle slider, a deep dive into expressions (vs. VBA), and how to list active Windows processes.

Mike Wolfe

• 3 min read
Week in Review: October 25, 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-Sonnet-4.5.

  • John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
    • TaskDialog and TaskDialogIndirect helper functionality: Provides helper code and activation context functionality required for TaskDialog/TaskDialogIndirect API calls, including support for Common Controls version 6 in applications using version 5.
    • TaskDialog ... MsgBox plus: Demonstrates a CTaskDialog class that wraps the TaskDialog Windows API to create enhanced message boxes with main instructions, content sections, and extended button options.
  • Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
    • Signing Off: Announces a temporary hiatus from blogging due to negativity and lack of support from the community, with the site remaining static during the break.
    • Creating a Microsoft Access Toggle Slider: Presents a demo database featuring a modernized toggle slider control for Microsoft Access forms with customizable On/Off labels.
    • Using VBA to List Active Processes: Shares VBA code using WMI to efficiently list active Windows processes with optional filtering and column sorting capabilities.
  • Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
    • Throwback Thursday: October 23, 2025: Revisits the popular Pluralize() function for formatting strings with proper pluralization in VBA and discusses recent RegEx-related bugs in Access.

Videos‌

New to Me

This section includes content I discovered this week that has been around for a while.

  • 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.

  • [October 28, 2025] Colin Riddington: A Masterclass in Access Security
  • [November 5, 2025] Ynte Jan Kundersma: Using Power Automate with Office Apps
  • [November 06, 2025] George Hepworth: Create Auditing in an Access Database with 3 Mouse Clicks
  • [December 03, 2025] Adolph Dupré: Using Twilio for Texting from Access
  • [February 04, 2026] Aleksander Wojtasz: Creating an Advanced Data Grid Integrated with Access
  • [March 04, 2026] Chris Arnold: Using Disconnected (In-Memory) ADO Recordsets in Access

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-10-18) and this week (2025-10-25).

The roadmap was last updated October 15, 2025.

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. Dates listed are "rollout start" dates.

In Development

  • OCT 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.
  • SEP 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

None listed.

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

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

2024

2025

2026

2027

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

2031

2033

2034

Ongoing

Date TBD

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All original code samples by Mike Wolfe are licensed under CC BY 4.0