The ‘New Outlook’ A Total Disaster

I don’t know what is going on in Redmond, but this is getting to be ridiculous!

I was working on a PC which the user had Windows Mail as their E-mail client. He’s always dismissed the prompts to switch to the ‘New Outlook’. That said, sadly, after a recent update he found himself with the ‘New Outlook’ as his e-mail client.

Now, I’ve seen, in the past, a button was available to revert back to your prior application, but nope, not in this case, no slider button appeared. He had no choice, Microsoft unilaterally imposed the ‘New Outlook’!

Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, he finds out that the New Outlook isn’t functional.

Continue reading →

Export Report to Excel Only Available As XLS Format

Well, I’m all for reminiscing, but in this instance I think the Dev Team may have gone a little too far!

A user recent left me a comment inquiring about how they could export an Access report in Excel format, but as an xlsx. Seem like a reasonable enough question considering the xlsx file format has been the default format for at least 17 years now!

Continue reading →

Using PowerShell to Save a Base64 String as a File

I recently needed to save a base64 image string back as a file on my PC. Yes, I have all the code to do so here, and in demo databases, but I decided to go the PowerShell route as it is simpler for a the one off situation I was in. Don’t get me wrong, it can be done in VBA and I’ve provided the code to do so here already, but PowerShell, as you will see momentarily, makes it much simpler to accomplish.

As such, I thought I’d simply share the code should anyone else need to do so.

The basic concept is:

$base64 = '...'; #base64 string to save as a file
$saveAs = '...'; #fully qualified path and filename to save the base64 string as

[IO.File]::WriteAllBytes($saveAs, [Convert]::FromBase64String($base64));

a concrete example would be:

Continue reading →

How-To Copy a Table’s Structure Only Without The Data

Here’s an interesting question that I was asked today:

I want yo copy only structure, empty table without data?

We immediately think of CopyObject method, but sadly, Microsoft never included the option to include/omit the data. So it always includes the data. Yes, you could use it non the less and then clear the table of the data afterwards, but this will cause unnecessary bloating and require a Compact and Repair to complete the process properly. It remains an option, but there are better approaches, so let’s briefly explore a couple of them.
 
Continue reading →

Working With Dates and Times

This is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while, that is, to create a page dedicated to working with Dates and Times.

I was doing a little more advanced Date/Time VBA programming and decided that now was as good a time as ever to start creating such a page.  So here it is.

This article will evolve with time, so come back from time to time.

Continue reading →

What is the Difference Between Office 2024 and MS365?

After my recent post and video regarding Office 2024’s release:

Microsoft Office 2024 Released!
Did you know, Office 2024 launched yesterday! That’s right, if you want a perpetual license (1 time purchase rather than the MS365 Subscription model) of the latest and greatest version of Office then 2024 is now on the market. Here’s Microsoft’s official announcement:  

I’ve seen a few questions on my YouTube channel and in various forums where people are trying to understand the difference between Microsoft 365 (also referred to as MS 365 or MS365) and this latest release of Office 2024.

As such, I thought this an important subject to cover.

Continue reading →

Microsoft Office 2024 Released!

Did you know, Office 2024 launched yesterday!

That’s right, if you want a perpetual license (1 time purchase rather than the MS365 Subscription model) of the latest and greatest version of Office then 2024 is now on the market.

Here’s Microsoft’s official announcement:

Office 2024 for consumers available October 1 | Microsoft 365 Blog
Office 2024 includes updated, locked-in-time versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, and Outlook for PC and Mac. Learn more.

 
Continue reading →

Randomly Delete/Clear Rows of Data Within a Column(s) in Excel

A bit of a weird one today.

I was in need to deleting some data in various columns within an Excel Workbook and instead of undertaking this task manually, I decided a little VBA function would do the trick and be much faster than I ever could be manually.

So basically, I wanted to randomly delete value from within a single column, or possibly randomly delete rows of data within a series of columns. For my needs, I came up with the following procedure:

Continue reading →

You need to do something extra before we can sign you in.

Once again, in the category of ‘you can’t make this crap up’, I was trying to connect to a new client’s SharePoint site via Access to review their data and determine how I could clean things up and get them setup properly in Azure…

Well, using the External Data -> More -> SharePoint List and entering the SharePoint URL, I was prompted for my credentials after when I go to authenticate, this is what I get!

Continue reading →

How to Select and De-Select an Item in a Listbox

Simplifying Data Entry in Microsoft Access: Setting Default Selections in Listboxes

While working on a project for a charity I support, I aimed to streamline data entry by setting a default selected item in a Listbox. Given that 95% of the time, this would be the desired value, it seemed like a simple way to reduce clicks and enhance user experience.

Instead of hardcoding a value directly into the Property Sheet or using VBA, I recalled a subroutine I had developed years ago for a similar purpose. After some digging, I found that routine and decided to enhance it by updating the header and refining the error handler. The result? A more robust solution for selecting or deselecting specific items in a Listbox.
 
Continue reading →