Week in Review: September 12, 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.}

• Official Access Blog
  • Fixes in Microsoft Access – Version 2608 (Build 16.0.20326.20100): Lists the bug fixes in Access Version 2608, including a regression that caused controls to lose fonts, colors, and styles or crash when printing reports with embedded images or OLE objects, and several Zoom-related fixes.
• Access Forever
  • Visual Glitches and Format Problems (Fixed): Explains that an Office-wide security update caused display and printing glitches in Access reports and forms, identifies the fixed builds, and provides rollback and control-removal workarounds.
• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
  • Finding Duplicate Files with PowerShell: Presents a read-only PowerShell script that finds duplicate files by grouping on size and SHA-256 hash, then exports an Excel report of the duplicates and potential space savings.
  • Is Your Cloud Data Really Safe?: Discusses how cloud provider ownership and jurisdiction, not just server location, affect the legal protection of data stored in services like OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox.
  • Display User-Entered Query Criteria on a Microsoft Access Report: Demonstrates how to display user-entered parameter query values on an Access report without VBA by referencing the same parameter expression in an unbound text box.
• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
  • Access Bug Summary - Sept 2026 (IN PROGRESS): Catalogs Access bugs reported in September 2026—including zoom context-menu placement, integer window-width limits, property sheet text colors, FormatConditions with spaces, and a Boolean filtering regression—along with fixes in versions 2608 and 2609.
  • AEU55: GraphAuthenticator - 'New' Outlook solved!: Recaps the September 2, 2026 Access Europe meeting where Peter Bryant and Andrew Richards demonstrated GraphAuthenticator, a tool enabling VBA to authenticate with M365 MFA and access the Graph API.
• Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
  • Update: Sort Array: Provides downloadable VBA code by crystal (strive4peace) to sort one- or two-dimensional string arrays ascending or descending by a specified column, usable across any VBA-enabled application.
• George Hepworth (Grover Park Consulting)
  • Four Builds, Four Different Roads, One Destination: Explains how an outcome-first AI template for audit logging produced four structurally different Access builds that all passed the same validation checks and exhibited identical logging behavior.
• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
  • Throwback Thursday: September 10, 2026: Revisits favorite Access-related AutoHotkey scripts, including one relevant to the new zooming feature, alongside articles from around the web and developer humor.
  • twinBASIC Update: September 8, 2026: Reports on the upcoming twinBASIC beta 874, which promises 20–25% lower IDE memory usage and virtually no editing memory leaks, plus a delayed release timeline and a debate over WinDevLib's growing API footprint.

Videos

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)
  • AEU55: Graph Authenticator - the 'New' Outlook problem solved (01:12:59): with Andrew Richards and Peter Bryant
  • Class Programming 201: Custom Events (Extended) (50:28): with Eric Blomquist
  • Class Programming 201: Custom Events (Excerpt) (27:46): with Eric Blomquist
• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
  • Highlight Text (16:59): Highlight All Matching Words for a Search in a Text Box in Microsoft Access
  • Developer 61 (03:03): Build an Orphan VBA Code Detector for Forms and Reports in Microsoft Access
  • Video Quiz D2.1 (03:49): Why Text Boxes Concatenate Numbers Instead of Adding in Microsoft Access
  • Video Quiz A2.3 (04:00): Can a Standalone Macro Change a Toggle Button Caption in Microsoft Access?
  • Video Quiz X0.1 (03:35): How Do You Include All the End Date Times in Microsoft Access Queries?
  • Video Quiz X2.3 (04:23): When Should You Use Cascade Delete Related Records in Microsoft Access?

GitHub Projects

^{Changelog summary generated by Claude Opus 5.}

MCP-Access After a five-release sprint, MCP-Access spent this week on a single release — v0.7.59, September 6 — and nearly every item in it comes from the same place: the server was accepting caller mistakes and quietly doing something plausible instead of saying what went wrong. Tab controls had been invisible to access_list_controls because the parser never mapped type 123, so tab geometry went unreported and nothing recorded which page a nested control belonged to; CTRL_TYPE now maps it, tabs are exempted from the geometry lint rules, and the container-recognition guard from v0.7.34 keeps the fix from swallowing the controls inside. The strangest bug was a coercion chain: an MCP client that serialized "-1" as a string for automatic positioning had it read as True — Access does treat -1 as True — and then int(True) collapsed to 1, so a control asking to be placed automatically landed at coordinate 1 instead; dedicated numeric helpers now convert geometry arguments in both ac_create_control and the snap_to_grid loop. The rest is the server learning to speak up: omitting parent on a create now warns when the new control's rectangle overlaps a tab in the same section, naming the tab and its available pages and pointing out that it's the page name that goes in parent, while ControlType is now resolved from the Begin <Type> token for the cases where Access omits the line because the type is the default — which is exactly what had been breaking round-trips through access_create_control.

Last week's releases were about knowing which database you've actually got hold of; this one is about the server admitting when the answer it's about to give isn't the one you asked for.

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 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
• [TBD?] John Mallinson: Working with the Windows API (REMOVED FROM AUG CALENDAR)

Access Roadmap

The following changes were made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2026-09-05) and this week (2026-09-12):

• Cascading combo and list boxes with LinkMasterFields/LinkChildFields: Rollout start date updated from AUG 2026 to SEP 2026

The roadmap was last updated September 11, 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

• SEP 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

• [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

• [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)