Week in Review

Week in Review: July 5, 2025

Highlights include a faster alternative to DLookup, using AI to analyze an Access database, and an Access bug and subsequent fix related to Access wizards.

Mike Wolfe

Jul 5, 2025 • 5 min read

Just Published

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

Articles

^{*Article descriptions generated by Claude-Sonnet-4.}

Crystal Long (Access Access Newsletter)
- How to select the previous or next choice in an Access Combo box or Listbox using VBA: Demonstrates a VBA procedure to programmatically navigate through combo box and listbox items using command buttons with previous/next functionality.
Jonathan Halder (Access JumpStart 2.0)
- Allowing AI to see your whole database: Explores methods for exporting Access database objects to text files so AI tools can analyze entire database structures and provide development assistance.
- Playing with CoPilot for analyzing an Access database: Documents the process of consolidating exported Access object files into a single text file that CoPilot can analyze to provide performance optimization recommendations.
- Mastering CROSS JOIN in SQL Server: From Cartesian Products to Reusing Calculated Columns: Explains how to use CROSS JOINs for generating Cartesian products and creating reusable calculated columns without repeating complex formulas.
Daniel Pineault (DEVelopers HUT)
- Access MVPs Launch 'Access Talk' on Discord: A group of Access MVPs have created a new Discord server called "Access Talk" to provide a welcoming community space for Microsoft Access users to connect, share knowledge, and get support.
- Microsoft Access Wizards Broken: Microsoft Access wizards for MVFs and lookup fields have been broken for several weeks due to unrelated security work, with no official acknowledgment from the Access team on their blog or fixes page.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Lookup Wizard Bug (FIXED): The lookup wizard bug that prevented creation of multivalued fields and table-level lookup fields has been quickly acknowledged and fixed across all affected Office channels.
Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
- Analyzer (update): The free Analyzer tool for Microsoft Access has been updated with vbWatchdog improvements and provides comprehensive database documentation with over 50 built-in reports.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Throwback Thursday: July 3, 2025: This week's throwback features articles about the underused Watch Window debugging tool in VBA, along with related debugging resources and developer humor.
- GET and POST with JSON with Neil Sargent & Leo theDBguy: Neil Sargent demonstrates a production-ready solution for integrating Microsoft Access with external APIs using JSON for both GET and POST operations in a real-world electrical testing company application.

Videos‌

George Hepworth (YouTube channel)
- From Access to PowerApps: Replicating Northwind: A series from one of the core team members of the Northwind 2.0 template redesign project.
  - The Remaining Order Detail Sub Procedures (11:50)
Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #47 (28:25): Outlook Email Automation, Faster Dlookup, CoPilot Integration
- Faster DLookup: Part 1 (15:18): Faster Than DLookup: Speed Up Your Microsoft Access Code & Forms with This Simple Technique
- Faster DLookup: Part 2 (16:52): Faster Than DLookup: Speed Up Your Microsoft Access Code & Forms with This Simple Technique, Part 2
- Timer Function (17:57): Is Your Microsoft Access Database Slow? Use the Timer Function to Find Out Where.

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}^{. 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}^.

[August 06, 2025] Colin Riddington: New and Forthcoming Features in Access
[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 (2025-06-28) and this week (2025-07-05):

Add zoom slider magnification to Microsoft Access: Rollout start changed from JUN 2025 to SEP 2025
Modernize Access Forms and Reports to work well on Large Format Monitors: Rollout start changed from JUL 2025 to SEP 2025

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.

Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes: (Monthly Issue Fix Blog) Improved product quality and reliability
Large monitor support for forms: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware
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

SEP 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.
SEP 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:

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)