Week in Review: February 7, 2026
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.
- Access Forever
- Access User Groups 2026, by George Hepworth: A comprehensive guide to virtual and in-person Microsoft Access user groups worldwide, including meeting schedules, languages, and leaders for 2026.
- Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Showcase of Some of What is Possible: A visual gallery demonstrating advanced capabilities in Microsoft Access, from progress bars and OCR integration to PDF manipulation and web browser controls.
- They Asked for Feedback, Then Deleted It: A Cautionary Tale About Microsoft's "Listening" Culture: A critical examination of Microsoft's practice of silently deleting highly-voted Feedback Portal suggestions without explanation or accountability.
- Running Command Prompt Commands from VBA: Introduction to the CP_GetOutput VBA function that executes Command Prompt commands and captures their output directly into Access or Excel applications.
- Exciting News: Honored as an Experts Exchange Most Valuable Expert!: Announcement of Daniel Pineault's recognition as a 2025 Most Valuable Expert by Experts Exchange for outstanding community contributions.
- Mastering Loops in VBA for Office Developers: A comprehensive guide to VBA loop structures including Do loops, For Next, and For Each, with special emphasis on reverse iteration for safe deletion operations.
- Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- The Application.UserControl Property: An explanation of how the UserControl property affects Access alert messages and can be used to restrict whether applications open directly or via automation.
- Notepad++ Updates Compromised: Notepad++ delivered malware through a compromised update system from June to December 2025, prompting users to uninstall old versions and reinstall version 8.8.9 or later.
- AEU50: Using vbWatchdog with Access: Peter Cole demonstrates the vbWatchdog global error handler system and his vbWatchdog Unleashed tool for simplified error handling in Access VBA projects.
- Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Throwback Thursday: February 5, 2026: A retrospective highlighting the growing relevance of documentation-first development in the context of AI-assisted coding.
Videos
-
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- QQ #78: Silent Limits (30:59): The Setting That Silently Limits Microsoft Access Query Results That You Might Not Know Exists
- Vibe Coding (08:49): ...and the Illusion of Understanding
- Prevent Errors (14:14): How To Prevent Errors When Referencing One Form From Another In Microsoft Access
- SQL Server for Access Users - Beginner 1
- Salad Bar vs. Fine Dining (02:09): This analogy comparing Microsoft Access and SQL Server to a buffet versus fine dining...
- Lesson 1 (29:27): What Is SQL Server? Access v SQL Server, an Overview
- Lesson 2 (27:01): Install SQL Server Express + SSMS
- Lesson 3 (19:42): Exploring the Server Interface
-
Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)
GitHub Projects
VBA-MicrosoftGraph: Release 2.1
Fixes include:
- Updates to the authorization to grab pertinent fields from the initial redirect from Edge browser since Microsoft is now handling this differently and only pauses very briefly on the url with the authentication code. Needed for delegated access only.
- Also tested with Multi factor authentication and this appears to work now.
- Additional capabilities to CreateEvent function to allow passing in of calendar group name and calendar name for use in Shared and Group calendars. Note that if you cannot see the calendar in Microsoft Outlook online then you will not be able to add events for it. If you can, then you should be able to by adding values to these two new fields. Sample only shows blanks.
- Delegated access - added permissions for the below for the new calendar options.
-calendars.readwrite.shared
-group.readwrite.all
New to Me
This section includes content I discovered this week that has been around for a while.
Terrific article. I feel like the author was plagiarizing directly from my soul.
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 24, 2026] Crystal Long: Recursive Functions
- [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
- [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 (2026-01-31) and this week (2026-02-07).
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
SQL Server 2014[JUL 09]
2025
Access 2016 | Access 2019 | Office 2016 | Office 2019[OCT 14]Windows 10[OCT 14]Salesforce ODBC Driver[OCT 28]Windows 11 version 23H2[NOV 11]
2026
[APR 01]Auto-migration of Classic Outlook begins for Enterprise users[JUL 14]SQL Server 2016[OCT 13]Access 2021 | Office 2021[OCT 13]Windows 11 version 24H2
2027
[JAN 12]Windows Server 2016[OCT 12]SQL Server 2017
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)