Week in Review: May 24, 2025

Just Published

^{This section includes videos, articles, and (occasionally) open-source project updates from the past 7 days.}

Articles

^{*Article descriptions generated by Claude-3.7-Sonnet.}

• Access Forever

  • Bugs and Features -- May 2025, by Karl Donaubauer: A summary of recent Microsoft Access bugs, fixes, and new features including Monaco editor issues, SQL Server login problems, and UI improvements.

• Marcus Dieterle (LinkedIn Articles)

  • Sort continuous forms like a pro - with one click!: A tutorial on implementing professional column sorting in Access forms using CommandButtons, icons, and VBA functions.

• Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)

  • SDOpenAI Access Add In -- controlling context through selecting text.: An exploration of how the SDOpenAI Access Add-In manages context when sending information to the OpenAI API based on text selection in the VBE.
  • What are the options for OpenAI access? (as of May 2025): A comprehensive overview of OpenAI service options including pricing tiers, models, and functionality differences between ChatGPT Free, Plus, Pro and Teams.
  • Access VBA AI experiments -- Full version of SDOpenAI Access Plugin installed: Initial impressions and tests with the SDOpenAI Access Plugin for creating simple functions and exploring customization possibilities.
  • Preparing to use AI for programming: The author's plans for using AI tools like ChatGPT and SDOpenAI to help with coding tasks, class changes, and improving Access JumpStart infrastructure.

• Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)

  • Goto A New Record Having It Show At The Bottom Of A Continuous Form: A clever solution to display existing records while positioning a new record at the bottom of a continuous form.
  • Convert Any Angle Into A Cardinal Angle => 0, 90, 180 and 270: A VBA function that converts any angle input to one of the four cardinal angles (0, 90, 180, or 270 degrees).
  • My First Attempt Of Using CoPilot On My PC: A humorous post showing the author's apparently unsuccessful first experience with Microsoft Copilot.
  • The Best Approach To Reading Files In VBA: A comprehensive comparison of different VBA file reading methods concluding that ADODB Stream is best for small files while File Input works better for larger files.
  • Convert Any Angle Into A Positive Angle Between 0 and 359: A simple VBA function that normalizes any angle value to a positive value between 0 and 359 degrees.

• Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)

  • NEW - Create SQL Query Menu Item: An announcement of a new SQL Query button added to the Create ribbon in Access Beta Channel version 2506.
  • Highlight Current Control Using Transparency: A technique to highlight the current control in a continuous form by disabling transparency for the control border.
  • Highlight Current Record Using Transparency: Referenced article about highlighting the current record in a continuous form using transparency.

• Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)

  • Throwback Thursday: May 22, 2025: A weekly feature revisiting a previous article about different legal business entity types written in an entertaining style.
  • Chat with Other Access Developers on Discord with Jim Dettman and Doug Yudovich: A recap of an Access User Group presentation about using Discord as a modern communication platform for the Access development community.

Videos‌

• Access User Group Recordings (YouTube channel)

  • The State of Access (55:12): with Maria Barnes

• Richard Rost (YouTube channel)

  • Quick Queries #41 (42:52): Email Reminders, DAO vs ADO, Insert Rows, Autonumber Gaps, More!
  • Storing Duplicate Data, Part 1 (12:21): Storing Duplicate Data: Store Historical Data for Accuracy in Microsoft Access
  • Storing Duplicate Data, Part 2 (12:51): Storing Duplicate Data: Store Historical Data for Accuracy in Microsoft Access, Part 2
  • Storing Duplicate Data, Part 3 (16:02): Storing Duplicate Data: Store Historical Data for Accuracy in Microsoft Access, Part 3
  • Are You Sure? (12:32): Save Time With This Microsoft Access VBA "Are You Sure?" MsgBox Helper Function

• Daniel Pineault (YouTube channel)

  • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) with VBA (18:07)

New to Me

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

• 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. 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.}

• [May 27, 2025] Adrian Bell: Using Domain AD Security Features from within Access
• [June 04, 2025] Domenico Ruggiero: Orchestrating Office: Amplifying Access with Multi-Application Automation
• [June 05, 2025] John Colby: Preparing your Access Database Application for Deployment — Tools and Tips
• [July 02, 2025] Pete Poppe: Faking ‘Non-Normal’ User Interfaces with Normal Data
• [August 06, 2025] Colin Riddington: Large Monitor Support and Responsive Forms
• [September 03, 2025] Adam Waller: Topic TBD
• [October 01, 2025] Marcus Dieterle: High impact – Custom dialogs and mini-notifications
• [November 05, 2025] Aleksander Wojtasz: Topic TBD

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-05-17) and this week (2025-05-24).

The roadmap was last updated on April 10, 2025. The development priorities were last updated at the German-language AEK conference on October 20, 2024.

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.

"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.

Development Priorities

The items listed below reflect Microsoft's order of priority and were published in the following article, Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '24 – March '25.

The items are listed in priority order according to Principal Engineering Manager Dale Rector. The "Expected Benefit" of each feature is shown in italics after the description of the feature itself.

New priorities added since the previous set of priorities are shown in bold below.

1. Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
2. Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
3. Integrated source control: Simplifying the process of building mission critical Access solutions

Special thanks to Karl Donaubauer for posting the updated priorities at AccessForever.org.

In Development

• JUN 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.
• JUL 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

NOTE: Dates listed are rollout start dates.

• AUG 2024: Modern Chart Improvements: A top ask from customers is to modernize Access charts and to support better data visualization in Access. To satisfy this user request, we are integrating a new charting package called “Ivy” into Access. Ivy is a charting package written by the Office DVX team that is currently used in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.
• SEP 2024: Integrate Monaco framework to improve SQL editor capabilities: The Monaco Editor is the fully featured code editor from VS Code with standard IDE functionality such as syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, and autocomplete.

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

Here are the key end-of-life dates Access developers should track:

2024

• [JUL 01] Teams Classic Client
• [JUL 09] SQL Server 2014
• [OCT 01] Auto-migration of Classic Outlook begins for personal accounts
• [OCT 08] Windows 11 version 22H2

2025

• [JAN 01] Auto-migration of Classic Outlook begins for Small/Medium Business users
• [OCT 14] Access 2016 | Access 2019 | Office 2016 | Office 2019
• [OCT 14] Windows 10
• [NOV 11] Windows 11 version 23H2

2026

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

2027

• [JAN 12] Windows Server 2016
• [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)