Microsoft's Plans for Access Oct '24 – March '25

On 20 October 2024, at the German Access developer conference AEK26 the Microsoft Access team presented its "Engineering Priorities" until March 2025. The list was not as long as last year's ambitious one, but it contains two important topics for the product and one that is rather surprising.

Update (Nov 19, 2024): You can now watch the recording on my Youtube channel.

1. Continued Focus on Monthly Issue Fixes

(Monthly Issue Fix Blog)

Expected benefit: Improved product quality and reliability

Since 2022, the Access team has been publishing a list of bug fixes almost every month, which we summarise here on AFo in annual lists. These posts have two important functions: Firstly, they inform Access users and developers about what bugs have been fixed. Secondly, from a PR perspective, they show the world that Microsoft is trying to keep Access stable and, more generally, that Access is actively maintained, even in times when no new features are released.

2. Large monitor support for forms

Expected benefit: Improved support of Access on the latest hardware

This feature was already on last year's list and has not yet been delivered. As you can see in the picture below, it is about various points that should make up for 20+ years. The extension of the 22 inch limits for forms and reports, zooming the form and report view, vertical and horizontal growth of controls depending on space and content and other points. Some of this still seems to be only "under consideration", but perhaps some of it can be realised soon if the Access team concentrates on these adaptations to modern hardware over the next few months.

3. Integrated source control

Expected benefit: Simplifying the process of building mission critical Access solutions

That was the surprising announcement:

The source code control add-in was removed from Access in 2013. Since then, it has popped up from time to time as a wish of some developers on the feedback portals, but it is probably not a mass request and there are also third-party tools. Nevertheless, the Access team would like to reintegrate the functionality into the product. Shane Groff emphasised that the feature is still in the planning phase.