Week in Review: February 28, 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-Sonnet-4.5.}

• John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
  • Put text into the clipboard / get text from the clipboard: Demonstrates Windows API methods for reading and writing clipboard text in VBA without requiring external library references.
  • Expand / un-expand environment variable strings: Shows how to use Windows API functions to expand environment variables like %userprofile% to their full paths and contract paths back to variables.
• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
  • Mutually Exclusive Check Boxes in a Microsoft Access Continuous Form: Provides four progressively refined approaches to enforce that only one checkbox can be selected at a time in an Access continuous form.
  • Is Microsoft Access Still a Good Business Solution in 2026?: Questions whether Access remains viable given persistent bugs, slow development, lack of cloud/CoPilot integration, and migration toward web-based PHP solutions.
  • The Printer Rebellion of 2026: Describes troubleshooting a Windows 11 printer installation where PowerShell commands succeeded after the GUI silently failed.
  • Microsoft Breaks Google and Outlook REST API Samples: Reports that recent updates broke authentication forms using the legacy Web Browser control in Access REST API samples.
  • The Shocking Truth About Microsoft's Feedback Portal!: Documents that Microsoft deleted at least 34 of the author's Access Feedback Portal suggestions without notice or explanation, questioning the legitimacy of the feedback process.
  • Another One Bites The Dust: Reports another Access Feedback Portal suggestion that was among the most-voted but disappeared without notice, continuing a pattern of deleted user feedback.
• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
  • Personalised Popup Forms (Win 10 / 11): Explains how to customize Access popup form appearance in Windows 11 using the DwmSetWindowAttribute API to independently control title bar color, caption text, borders, and corner styles.
  • Access / Office Bug Summary - Feb 2026: A summary of Access and Office bugs reported in February 2026, including issues with PDF rendering, hanging instances, navigation forms in ACCDE files, and Edge browser controls.
• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
  • Throwback Thursday: February 26, 2026: A collection of articles exploring COM (Component Object Model) in VBA, including early vs. late binding and overcoming programming language barriers.

Videos‌

• Colin Riddington [Isladogs] (YouTube channel)
  • Puzzle: Access Message Boxes with no code (02:59)
• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
  • Query Results (33:19): When Combining Query Results Turns Into a Headache (QQ #81)
  • Subreports (20:01): How To Use Subreports In Microsoft Access To Put Multiple Reports On One Printable Page
  • SQL Server for Access Users - Beginner 1
    • Lesson 11 (24:42): Creating Queries & Views in SQL Server
    • Lesson 10 (25:50): Connect to SQL Server from Microsoft Access
    • Lesson 9 (18:18): Microsoft v Local Accounts

New to Me

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

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 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 (2026-02-21) and this week (2026-02-28).

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.

1. 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.
2. Large monitor support: Remove 22” limitation to support using Access on modern hardware.
3. Large monitor support: Enable zoom slider magnification for forms.
4. Large monitor support: Modernize forms to work well on large monitors.
5. 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).
6. 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

2025

• [OCT 14] Access 2016 | Access 2019 | Office 2016 | Office 2019
• [OCT 14] Windows 10
• [OCT 28] Salesforce ODBC Driver
• [NOV 11] Windows 11 version 23H2

2026

• [APR 01] Auto-migration of Classic Outlook begins for Enterprise users [POSTPONED TO MARCH 2027]
• [JUL 14] SQL Server 2016
• [OCT 13] Access 2021 | Office 2021
• [OCT 13] Windows 11 version 24H2

2027

• [JAN 12] Windows Server 2016
• [MAR 01] Auto-migration of Classic Outlook begins for Enterprise users (originally scheduled for April 2026, but postponed to March 2027)
• [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)