Week in Review

Week in Review: November 29, 2025

Highlights include Access developer survey results, a library of VBA functions for managing INI files, how to hide or move the Quick Access Toolbar, and how to enable full-screen mode.

Mike Wolfe

Nov 29, 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-4.5.}

Access Forever
- What Access Versions are Developers Using in 2025?, by Karl Donaubauer: Survey results from 170 developers showing Access 365 dominates at 76% usage, with insights on 32-bit vs 64-bit adoption and frontend/backend preferences.
Marcus Dieterle (LinkedIn Articles)
- Developer Helpers – INI File Toolbox – complete solution for configuration management!: A comprehensive VBA library with 13 functions for managing INI files, perfect for storing configuration settings outside the database to survive frontend updates.
Colin Riddington (Isladogs on Access)
- Hide or Move the Quick Access Toolbar using code: VBA techniques using registry modifications to programmatically control Quick Access Toolbar visibility, position, and label display in Access 2021 and later.
- Full Screen Mode in Access: Explains how to enable full-screen mode in Microsoft Access 365 using registry edits or VBA code, since it cannot be activated directly from the ribbon menu like in other Office applications.
- AEU46: Using Twilio for texting from Access: Details for the December 2025 Access Europe meeting where Adolph Dupré demonstrates sending text messages via Twilio, applying themes to Access forms, and generating table schemas for AI tools.
- Access Specification Issues: Examines Microsoft's published Access specifications and limits, identifying which are hard limits versus guidelines, and correcting several misleading, outdated, or inaccurate values through systematic testing.
- Size Limits on Access Code Modules: Clarifies that Access VBA modules have no fixed character limit for code itself, with the commonly cited 64KB restriction applying only to static data declarations at module level.
- A Masterclass in Access Security: A comprehensive presentation on implementing security barriers in Access databases, including demonstrations and a security challenge, delivered at the UK Access User Group conference in October 2025.
Crystal Long (Ms Access Gurus | Access Access Newsletter)
- Update: Properties: VBA code module for managing database and object properties, including functions to set, get, delete, and display custom properties for persistent configuration storage.
Mike Wolfe (NoLongerSet)
- Throwback Thursday: November 27, 2025: Retrospective featuring the B-BEAR technique (Begin, Before, Execute, After, Rollback) for safely making live SQL Server production data changes.

Videos‌

Richard Rost (YouTube channel)
- Quick Queries #68 (35:50): The Innocent Microsoft Access Control That Could Be Drastically Slowing Your Form Load Times
- Holiday Sale 2025 (01:38): Holiday Sale 2025 - Save 50% on Video Tutorials, Seminars, & Templates - Including Microsoft Access
- Locked Out! (10:15): How To Bypass Microsoft Access Startup and Get Into Your Database Design
- Finding #Hashtags (08:26): Microsoft Access Not Finding Hashtags In Text Fields - Fix Like Search With Pound Sign
- Dynamic Filtering, Part 2 (12:10): How to Use Dynamic Filtering to Load Combo Boxes Faster in Microsoft Access, Part 2
David Britz [David's Database and Coding Channel] (YouTube channel)
- Access Youtube Ep09 (19:45)

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}^.

[December 03, 2025] Adolph Dupré: Using Twilio for Texting from Access
[January 7, 2026] Neil Sargent: Spot the Difference – New Style MsgBox for Access
[February 04, 2026] Aleksander Wojtasz: Creating an Advanced Data Grid Integrated with Access
[March 04, 2026] Chris Arnold: Using Disconnected (In-Memory) ADO Recordsets in Access
[April 1, 2026] Tim Finch: Grid Lanes
[June 3, 2026] Kevin Bell: SQL Server Tips and Tricks for Access Developers

Access Roadmap

There were no changes made to the roadmap between the Week in Review last week (2025-11-22) and this week (2025-11-29).

The roadmap was last updated October 15, 2025.

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 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.
DEC 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

None listed.

Development Priorities

"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.

The items listed below reflect Microsoft's order of priority and were published in the following Access Forever article, Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '25 – March '26.

Continued focus on monthly issue fixes, security, customer-reported bugs, etc. to improve product quality, security, reliability, and relevance. Most of our engineering hours are spent here.
Large monitor support: Remove 22” limitation to support using Access on modern hardware.
Large monitor support: Enable zoom slider magnification for forms.
Large monitor support: Modernize forms to work well on large monitors.
Time allowing, we’ll continue to work on remaining large monitor support features (support zoom in reports and design layout, automatic zooming, support multiple monitor scenarios).
If we still have time left over in the semester, we will begin work on Git integration for source code management in Access. (Spec is in progress. We will likely roll this out in phases also beginning the second half of 2026.)

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

Upcoming End-of-Life Dates

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

2024

~~[JUL 09]~~ SQL Server 2014

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)