Week in Review

Week in Review: October 24, 2026

Highlights include the six-month Access roadmap, building an Access COM add-in, a Registry helper class, and generating QR codes in pure VBA.

Mike Wolfe

• 5 min read
Week in Review: October 24, 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
  • Access Forever
    • Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '26 – March '27, by Karl Donaubauer: Summarizes the Microsoft Access team's engineering priorities through March 2027 as presented at the AEK28 conference, including the IE control phase-out, delayed Git integration, date picker and rounded control corner improvements, and adjustable font sizes in the macro designer and expression builder.
  • Marcus Dieterle (LinkedIn Articles)
    • Registry Helper 🔥: Introduces Marcus Dieterle's modRegistry VBA module, a reference-free tool for reading, writing, listing, and deleting Windows registry values across 32- and 64-bit Office to persist per-user settings through frontend updates.
  • John Mallinson (The VBA Help)
    • Stop the PC sleeping during a long-running task: Explains how to use the Windows API SetThreadExecutionState function in VBA to keep a machine and optionally its display awake during long-running jobs, and how to properly clear the state afterward.
  • Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
    • CARDA Duplicate File Finder Utility: Introduces a free standalone Windows utility that identifies duplicate files using size and SHA-256 hash comparison, displays results in a sortable grid, and exports them to Excel.
    • How To Create a Microsoft Access COM Add-In: Demonstrates how to build a Microsoft Access COM add-in using VB.NET and the .NET Framework to add design tools to Access itself, sharing the full Visual Studio project with x86 and x64 installers.
  • Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
    • QR Code Creator: Shares a downloadable Access database that generates QR codes from URLs or text using pure VBA with no external references or APIs, built on code written by Claude Code AI and posted by Kitayama.
  • Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
    • MS Access Professionals File Archive — Bill Mosca: Preserves the file archive of Bill Mosca's MS Access Professionals forum, offering sample databases, utilities, add-ins, and code samples contributed by members before the forum closes in mid-November 2026.
  • Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
    • Throwback Thursday: October 22, 2026: Revisits the B-BEAR SQL Server testing technique, using PRINT to preview live updates, and five tips for safely making changes on production databases, plus a comic about defensive programming on a live table.
    • twinBASIC Update: October 20, 2026: Covers okas_o's initial release of tblaunch, a command-line tool for building twinBASIC projects without the IDE to support CI and AI-driven workflows, plus a preview of fafalone's forthcoming rich edit control.

Videos

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.

  • [October 27, 2026] Eric Flamm: Access to Azure integration using Data Factory
  • [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
  • [January 6, 2026] John Colozzi: Northwind 2.0 Reimagined (JUST ADDED)
  • [February 3, 2026] Kallun Willock: Topic to be confirmed (JUST ADDED)

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2026-10-17) and this week (2026-10-24).

The roadmap was last updated October 15, 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