Week in Review

Week in Review: September 26, 2026

Highlights include a new built-in feature to create cascading combo boxes, tips for getting and setting the Office language via VBA, and a talk on UserForms in Office.

Mike Wolfe

• 6 min read
Week in Review: September 26, 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.

Videos

GitHub Projects

Changelog summary generated by Claude Opus 5.

MCP-Access Four releases in four days — v0.7.60 through v0.7.63, September 21 to 24 — and every one of them came back from somebody using the server against a real database rather than from a test.

v0.7.60 started with a 64-bit audit that came back clean and wasn't: access_vbe_search_all reported the physical line it matched, so a Declare wrapped across three lines with _ continuations surfaced without its return type, hiding a handle that truncates to 32 bits — matches now carry statement_line, end_line and a joined content_full, while an ordinary single-line hit stays byte-identical to v0.7.59. v0.7.61 found the same defect in the other text format the server reads, after a field report from long sessions using it to read an old application: SaveAsText splits long quoted property values across physical lines, and the control parser kept the first fragment and dropped the rest in silence, so a ControlSource ending at …*1 instead of …*100)/Nz([Total])/100) parsed cleanly, looked complete, and reached production as figures a hundred times too large — the same release added access_search_controls, which matches against the joined value so a term falling across the split is actually found. Running that new parser against a real export instead of a fixture immediately exposed an older bug sitting behind it, fixed in v0.7.62: .strip('"') had been chewing through a value's own closing quote whenever the value ended in one, so ="=\"Ref: \" & [OrderNo] & \"\"" came back mutilated. And v0.7.63, reported and fixed by @profesor-franhuertas, corrected a different sort of wrong answer — Access loads a referenced library's VBA project into the same collection as the host and makes it the active one, so reference listings and compile checks had been quietly inspecting the wrong database entirely.

Three of the four are the same shape: a value that came back looking whole. What ties the week together is where they came from — an audit, an archaeology session, and a real export, none of which a fixture would have caught.

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 1, 2026] George Hepworth: Open Template Scaffolds for AI Assisted 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 (2026-09-19) and this week (2026-09-26).

The roadmap was last updated September 14, 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

  • OCT 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.
  • 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.

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

  • AUG 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.

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