Loops form the backbone of iterative programming in VBA for Microsoft Access, allowing developers to process recordsets, validate form inputs, or manipulate arrays efficiently without writing repetitive code. VBA provides four primary loop structures, Do loops (with While/Until variations), For Next, and For Each, each designed for specific scenarios such as conditional repetition or fixed-range traversal. Selecting the right loop depends on factors like whether the iteration count is known upfront, the need for early exits, or the data structure involved, such as DAO recordsets common in Access databases.
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Tag Archives: MS Access
Showcase of Some of What is Possible
Over the years, I’ve pushed the limits of Microsoft Access and a variety of other tools, discovering just how far creativity and persistence can take you. I wanted to share a few examples from those experiments which I hope will serve as inspiration for other developers looking to explore new possibilities.
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Creating a Custom Ribbon in Microsoft Access
Microsoft Access applications often live or die by their user experience. One of the most effective ways to control that experience is through a custom Ribbon. When designed correctly, a ribbon can guide users, reduce mistakes, and make an Access database feel like a purpose-built application instead of a collection of forms.
This article walks through the entire process of creating a custom ribbon in Access from how ribbons are stored, to debugging XML, to building dynamic, role-aware interfaces using VBA.
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Microsoft Office Icons Get a Modern Refresh
Microsoft Office has just rolled out a fresh new look, with its suite of apps receiving a long-awaited facelift. As of yesterday, the familiar icons for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and more have been refreshed, giving the productivity tools a modern, streamlined design.
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Microsoft Access Roadmap Misses Again: Large Format Monitor Modernization Delayed?
Microsoft Access “Modernization” Still Stuck in the Past
So, September 2025 has come and gone, the leaves are turning colors, pumpkin spice has taken over every coffee shop, and… the “Modernize Access Forms and Reports to work well on Large Format Monitors” feature? Nowhere to be found (to my knowledge nothing has been released, feel free to correct if I am wrong). Apparently, Access forms still believe it’s 1997 and that we’re all squinting at the same 19-inch monitor.
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What Does Microsoft Have Against Microsoft Access?
If you wander over to Microsoft’s official MS365 blog these days, you’ll notice something. It’s not a magazine spread of all the familiar Microsoft 365 apps anymore. It’s not even a balanced showcase of Excel, Teams, Outlook, or PowerPoint. No- now the star of the show, the headline act, the single unrelenting topic is Copilot. It’s actually offensively so.
Every article, every flashy graphic, every bold font: Copilot. Copilot writes. Copilot summarizes. Copilot practically makes your coffee. Microsoft 365, the suite itself, only gets a quick name-drop like an older sibling being politely acknowledged before the younger, shinier one takes over the conversation.
And Access? Poor Access isn’t even at the table. You can at least find content on MS365, Excel, Word, Outlook, … but Access, no Access is nowhere to be found!
Access is like the cousin at the family reunion who wasn’t technically uninvited, but somehow no one remembered to tell them the time or place. Like Cinderella, doing all the work, but hidden away while others take the credit.
Microsoft Access Zoom Slider Feature Delayed Again: A Familiar Story of Roadmap Slips
Microsoft Access users have yet again encountered a delay in anticipated feature rollout. The ‘Add zoom slider magnification‘ feature, which was initially scheduled for release in June 2025, then pushed to September 2025, has now been pushed back, yet again, now this time to October 2025 (March 2026 now and still no signs of life of this new feature and no updates from the Dev Team on the subject) according to the latest update on the official Microsoft 365 Roadmap.
This zoom slider will allow users to magnify forms, reports, and controls anywhere from 10% to 500%, offering a much-needed improvement to navigating complex Access databases on varying screen sizes and resolutions. It also promises keyboard accessibility and integration into the Ribbon interface, bringing Access in line with the zoom capabilities already familiar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
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Unable to Get SQL View To Work With The Monaco Editor?
If you’re using the new Monaco SQL Editor, you might have noticed an annoying issue at times: the SQL View option disappears, making it impossible to switch between design or results view and the SQL code or simply loads an empty text editor as if your SQL Statement had vanished into thin air. While the Monaco editor brings a sleeker interface with improved code editing features, it currently doesn’t always play well with SQL View depending on certain factors and types of queries.
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KB5064081 Causing VBA Headaches and Crashing Access?
We may have another issue to watch out for this week. A couple of users have now reported that installing KB5064081 is causing their Access applications to crash, specifically when running code that uses ADO and/or DAO.
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VBScript.RegExp Assertion Failure!
Huston we have yet another problem!
We are seeing multiple reports that a recent update has broken, at the very least VBScript.RegExp, resulting in the following error: