Sad News For The Access Community – Passing of Ken Getz

I was informed yesterday that Ken Getz passed away.

His books were, should I say, ARE instrumental in any Access developer’s learning path and career. His contributions can be seen everywhere, whether you know it, or not.

My very first book was his:

Access 97 Developers Handbook
Here's the book the Access community relies on! Packed with tips, tricks, secrets, undocumented features, and tons of reusable source code, this indispensable guide is your ticket to developing bulletproof applications. Learn how to build more efficient databases, design better user interfaces, develop client/server applications, and plan for interoperability. The companion CD includes all examples from the book, a library of reusable code, ready-to-use subroutines and user-interface objects, and great freeware and shareware utilities.

and I still use it to this day!  That’s how good it is.

I never had the pleasure of actually meeting the man, but from I’m told by other MVPs is that he truly was a remarkable and approachable individual.

RIP.

8 responses on “Sad News For The Access Community – Passing of Ken Getz”

  3. FrankRuperto

    Many of the template modules we used in our Access applications were authored by Ken Getz, RIP. We now only have 2 out of 116 customers still using Access applications. We began migrating all others in year 2013 to Web based solutions when Microsoft announced subscription based model and everything in the cloud. The most recent nail in the coffin for Access is Office will no longer run on Windows Server OS’ effective October 2025. I am also no longer posting on UtterAccess and have moved away from anything Microsoft. So in several ways its RIP for Ken Getz, Access, UA, and all Microsoft products.

    1. Daniel Pineault Post author

      I’m not soo sure that is the reality. Access is only a ‘desktop’ (can’t think of the proper term) installation. There is no Web version! There is no way they will suddenly leave thousands, millions of businesses/useers suddenly without. Moreover, there is support for Office 2021 until 2026 (3 years away). Furthermore, If you have Office on your server, it will continue to work (the older versions I’m talking about), you don’t have to upgrade. You didn’t, you still run Windows 7 don’t you.

      Lastly, MS365 is listed as No End Date, so it should continue to work just fine. There will be a new version of Server by then, the matrix will get updated and will included MS365, I’m sure.

      I’m not a huge MS lover myself anymore, but don’t create panic either. These are all choices.

      As for subscription based… sadly, all the companies are doing. This isn’t a Microsoft thing. They get more money, more control, …

    1. Daniel Pineault Post author

      More links does little.

      I decided to ask the Access Dev Team about this, and got nothing but silence!

      I also see Mike Wolfe has just posted regarding this issue: https://nolongerset.com/ms365-on-windows-server/ which seems to support most of what you say, but do note that MS365 apps remain fully supported, for now.

      All the companies are trying to force subscription models. I guess this is Microsoft’s attempt to force upgrades to a single version and monthly subscription revenues.

      Some will say this is good, others will argue that they are taking about any choice and forcing things upon users.

      People have a serious choice to make!

      All I know is a lot of IT Admins are going to have a lot of headaches to deal with in the near future because of this.

  5. FrankRuperto

    I would take Microsoft’s reversal decision to support M365 on WS with a grain of salt. Who knows what Microsoft’s policy will be by year 2025-26. With that in mind our customers dont like being at the mercy of whatever MS decides and migrating platforms can take years so the decision to move has already been made.