Week in Review

Week in Review: January 31, 2026

Highlights include 6 ways to get the current username, adding a visible countdown timer, free OCR tools for extracting text from images, and creating a custom ribbon.

Mike Wolfe

Jan 31, 2026 • 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-Opus-4.5 and Claude-Sonnet-4.5.}

John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
- Fixing the letter case of code in the VBE: VBE_Extras now includes a "Fix case" command that corrects the letter casing of code words throughout your entire project.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- A few quick VBA tips for better development and deployment of your Access App: Best practices for Access VBA development including using Option Explicit, frequent backups, replicating customer environments, and automating deployment steps.
- Reminder: You can't link linked Access file tables: Access doesn't allow you to link to tables that are already linked in another database, though importing linked tables is a potential workaround.
- Sharing the load – an exercise in splitting Access Files: A plan to split large data tables into separate Access files to extend the time before reaching the file size limit from six months to over a year.
- Simplifying Complex File Importing rules: Troubleshooting complex import logic by adding a new table to properly track part number date ranges across multiple files instead of using global file dates.
- Adding screen only buttons to a report for printing and adjusting report behavior as a modal dialog: Techniques for displaying screen-only buttons on reports using Report View with Popup and Modal properties, plus handling print dialog cancellation errors.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- "Your Data, Your Choices", A Microsoft Privacy Fairytale: A critical examination of Microsoft's privacy claims, questioning the gap between their stated commitments and actual user control over telemetry, encryption keys, and consent.
- Making Invisible Internet Explorer Instances Visible: A VBA procedure that enumerates all shell windows and forces hidden Internet Explorer instances to become visible for debugging and security inspection.
- 4 PowerShell Scripts for Managing Windows Services (List, Disable, Restore, Automate): Four PowerShell scripts with CSV logging to inventory, disable, restore, and automate Windows service configurations for performance optimization and debloating.
- Microsoft Releases Emergency Update for Critical Office Zero-Day CVE 2026 21509: Microsoft issues an out-of-band security patch for CVE-2026-21509, a critical Office vulnerability allowing security bypass that is actively exploited in the wild.
- Creating a Custom Ribbon in Microsoft Access: A comprehensive guide to building custom ribbons in Access using XML stored in USysRibbons, covering namespaces, callbacks, dynamic controls, and VBA integration.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Access / Office Bug Summary - Jan 2026: A monthly summary of Access and Office bugs reported in January 2026, including issues with filtered subforms, Monaco formatting, query context menus, a critical Windows 11 Outlook crash, subreport performance leaks, and ACCDE library compatibility problems.
- Copy Text From Anywhere On Screen Using OCR: A guide to extracting text from images, screenshots, and videos using free optical character recognition tools in Windows 10/11.
Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
- See Access Relationship Paths with Words + Allen Browne's List Files recursively: An introduction to VBA code that documents Access database relationship paths in readable text format, plus Allen Browne's recursive file-listing example.
- Document Access Relationship Paths using Words + Allen Browne's Recursive List Files: A downloadable Access database with VBA modules and tables for visualizing relationship paths as text and learning recursive function design.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Throwback Thursday: January 29, 2026: A revisit of key articles on text-based version control for Access, including installation guides and resilience strategies.
- UK AUG: Access Development with AI: Resources and tools from a UK Access User Group presentation on using AI coding agents, tight feedback loops, and modern development practices with Access.

Videos‌

Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Design Mistake (28:18): A Common Beginner Design Mistake with Microsoft Access Tables And the Easy Fix QQ#77
- Is Nothing (15:20): How To Set Optional Form Parameters In Microsoft Access VBA
- Ambiguous Name (15:48): How To Fix Ambiguous Name Detected Error and Find Duplicate Procedure Names
- Sleep Countdown (11:44): How To Add a Visible Sleep Countdown Timer Delay
- Access Developer Level 51 (PREVIEW) (01:30): Microsoft Access Developer Level 51: Drag & Drop File System, Popup Over Control, rs.Delete Fix
Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)
- VBA - Get Network Username (08:58): 6 Different Methods

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}^.

[February 04, 2026] Aleksander Wojtasz: Creating an Advanced Data Grid Integrated with Access
[February 24, 2026] Crystal Long: Recursive Functions (JUST ADDED)
[March 04, 2026] Chris Arnold: Using Disconnected (In-Memory) ADO Recordsets in Access
[March 27, 2026] Access Day (in person in Redmond, WA): speakers TBA
[March 31, 2026] Maria Barnes: Interfacing with the Outlook calendar (JUST ADDED)
[April 1, 2026] Peter Cole: Using vbWatchdog with Access
[April 16-17, 2026] Access DevCon Vienna (virtual): speakers TBA
[May 6, 2026] Tim Finch: Grid Lanes
[June 3, 2026] Kevin Bell: SQL Server Tips and Tricks for Access Developers
[September 2, 2026] John Mallinson: Working with the Windows API

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2026-01-24) and this week (2026-01-31).

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.
DEC 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.

Development Priorities

"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.

The items listed below reflect Microsoft's order of priority and were published in the following Access Forever article, Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '25 – March '26.

Continued focus on monthly issue fixes, security, customer-reported bugs, etc. to improve product quality, security, reliability, and relevance. Most of our engineering hours are spent here.
Large monitor support: Remove 22” limitation to support using Access on modern hardware.
Large monitor support: Enable zoom slider magnification for forms.
Large monitor support: Modernize forms to work well on large monitors.
Time allowing, we’ll continue to work on remaining large monitor support features (support zoom in reports and design layout, automatic zooming, support multiple monitor scenarios).
If we still have time left over in the semester, we will begin work on Git integration for source code management in Access. (Spec is in progress. We will likely roll this out in phases also beginning the second half of 2026.)

Special thanks to Karl Donaubauer for posting the updated priorities at AccessForever.org.

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

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

2024

~~[JUL 09]~~ SQL Server 2014

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)