Week in Review

Week in Review: September 5, 2026

Highlights include a TreeView control rendered in the Edge browser control, getting Office license info via SysCmd, and the latest on the new zoom feature.

Mike Wolfe

• 7 min read
Week in Review: September 5, 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-4.8.

  • George Hepworth (Grover Park Consulting)
    • Outcome-based instructions; what happens after the briefing: Builds on Mike Wolfe's outcome-based instruction concept to explain how the Open Template Scaffolds library implements intent-first templates that clearly label specifications, place them where the AI will bind to them, and enforce mandatory verifiable checks.
    • A Self-Graded Build: Argues that the real value of a template-driven AI build is forcing the assistant to answer critical design questions in advance and to run predefined validation checks rather than silently self-grading its own work, using audit logging as an example.
    • The Security Scan That Caused a Leak: Recounts how a Claude Code pre-commit security scan and a later PowerShell error both leaked SQL Server credentials into the AI session, illustrating the risks of printing passwords into an AI context and running agents unattended in Auto mode.
  • Official Access Blog
  • Access Forever
    • Visual Glitches and Format Problems: Documents the visual and printing glitches in reports and forms caused by an Office-wide security update in version 2607 and later, along with Microsoft's fix in version 2608 and available workarounds.
  • Marcus Dieterle (LinkedIn Articles)
    • Hamburger Menu: Presents Marcus Dieterle's table-driven Hamburger Menu, a hierarchical Access navigation control rendered as HTML in the Edge browser control where each menu item's click action is stored as data rather than in a Select Case block.
    • Access has no tree control — and every developer eventually needs one 🌳: Introduces Marcus Dieterle's TreeView FULL and LITE components, VBA-driven tree controls that run in the Edge browser control and display table, SQL, or file-system data without ActiveX registration or external references.
  • Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
    • Get Office License Info Using Code: Explains how to read the current user's Office license information from the registry using VBA, filling a gap left by the new SysCmd version-info actions that omit license details.
    • Size To Fit Form: Demonstrates how the Size to Fit Form command resizes form dimensions to match controls after zooming, and introduces the new ZoomResizesWindow property for automatic resizing in overlapping windows and popup forms.
  • Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
    • Update: Find Module: Describes Crystal Long's updated FindModule userform for any VBA application, now able to switch between VB projects, count and sort by lines of code, and copy project information to the clipboard.
  • Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
    • Outcome-Based Instructions: Explains how, drawing on the military concept of Commander's Intent, today's more capable AI models perform best when prompted with verifiable goals rather than strict step-by-step constraints.
    • Throwback Thursday: September 3, 2026: Revisits a past series on using Test Driven Development to convert a working VBA function into a SQL Server scalar function, alongside curated articles and developer humor.
    • How Much Will It Cost? (The Instant Answer): Presents an "x-figure project" shorthand for instantly giving prospects a ballpark cost magnitude, helping clients weigh cost against benefit and enabling immediate scope redesign before paid discovery work.
    • twinBASIC Update: September 1, 2026: Reports that the LLVM compiler optimization beta remains scheduled for September 4 with no new delays announced, and summarizes Discord discussion of VB6 Collection internals and IDE debugging issues.
    • RLVF: A Practical Example: Illustrates reinforcement learning through verifiable feedback with a real PDF-extraction problem, showing how a clear objective, comprehensive input data, and matching verifiable outputs let an AI agent build a working solution in roughly one prompt.
    • Week in Review: August 29, 2026: Rounds up the past week's Access community content, including an Edge-control TreeView, hiding the Access splash screen, upcoming Access Europe meetings, and a value-based feature prioritization framework.
    • The Value Matrix: Prioritizing Work for New Clients: Presents a prioritization framework that plots client backlog items by development effort against business impact into four quadrants—Home Runs, Easy Wins, Big Projects, and Money Pits—to sequence work and build client trust.

Videos

GitHub Projects

Changelog summary generated by Claude Opus 5.

MCP-Access
After four quiet weeks, MCP-Access shipped five releases in five days — v0.7.54 through v0.7.58, August 30 to September 3 — and three of them are about the same thing: knowing which database the server has actually got hold of. The locking work came first, since a shared open can't acquire a design lock and design changes against one fail silently rather than erroring: v0.7.55 added an opt-in MCP_ACCESS_EXCLUSIVE that forces an exclusive open and then verifies Access really granted it, and v0.7.56 followed by probing with dwShareMode = 0 and naming the actual occupants — computer and security name, read out of the lock file's 64-byte entries — so a blocked design change now tells you who's blocking it. v0.7.58 fixed the batch's most alarming bug, in which _Session._launch() would attach to whatever Access instance happened to be running and could close a database you had open on the side; it now attaches only to an instance that either has nothing open or already holds the target file, with the honest caveat that GetActiveObject can still only see one window when several are running. The remaining two were housekeeping: v0.7.54 gave access_screenshot a view parameter so a Design-view capture can bypass the modal forms and startup code that would otherwise block it, and v0.7.57 pinned the dependency to mcp>=1.0.0,<2 after SDK v2.0.0 began breaking the server at import with "AttributeError: 'Tool' object has no attribute 'inputSchema'".

It's the same lesson v0.7.53 landed on a month ago: the failures worth engineering against aren't the ones that raise errors, they're the ones that quietly report success.

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.

  • [September 8, 2026] Juan Soto: SQL Server with Access: We are back! Start the season with using a FREE AI tool with Access
  • [September 29, 2026] Maria Barnes: Access Lunchtime – using AI for Microsoft Access development
  • [October 7, 2026] George Hepworth: Using AI to create Open Template Scaffolds
  • [November 4, 2026] UKAUG Autumn 2026 Conference: In person at The Phoenix in London; speakers:
    • Colin Riddington: Sprinkle a little UI Magic on your Apps (in-person version)
    • Mike Wolfe: Version Control for Access Developers
    • Alessandro Grimaldi: MS Access: More than you think!
    • Tim Finch: 3D Rendering in VBA. Helped by new “mate”, Claude
    • The Microsoft Access Team
  • [November 11, 2026] Colin Riddington: Sprinkle a little UI Magic on your Access Apps
  • [December 2, 2026] Mike Wolfe: Using AI for Test Driven Development in Access

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2026-08-29) and this week (2026-09-05).

The roadmap was last updated June 23, 2026.

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

  • AUG 2026: Cascading combo and list boxes with LinkMasterFields/LinkChildFields: Combo boxes and list boxes now support LinkMasterFields/LinkChildFields properties, enabling cascading dropdowns (e.g., Country filters City) without writing VBA code.
  • JUL 2026: Rounded corners on Access form controls: We’re making it easier to give your Access apps a polished, up-to-date feel. With the new CornerRadius property, you can add rounded corners to form controls—bringing a softer, more modern look to your designs.
  • JUN 2026: Zooming for Continuous Forms and Multiple-Items Forms: Access extends zoom capabilities to continuous forms and pop-up forms, building on zoom support already available in tables and queries. Adjust magnification from 10 percent to 500 percent using the slider in the lower-right corner or controls on the ribbon. Keyboard shortcuts are also available, making it easy to quickly change your view and focus on the details that matter most.
  • MAY 2026: Enable zoom magnification to Microsoft Access for Forms, Tables, Queries: 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 in Access forms, tables, and queries.

Rolling Out

  • JUN 2026: Design Access forms and reports without 22-inch size constraints: With the removal of the 22-inch limit, your apps can now take full advantage of today’s larger monitors. You can display more data, create flexible layouts, and deliver a better experience on wide and high-resolution screens.

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