Access announces retirement of Database Compare tool in June 2026
MS Access currently ships a standalone Database Compare tool (DATABASECOMPARE.EXE) that enables comparison of two Access databases. As of June 2026, this tool will no longer be distributed and installed with Office. Access is retiring the Database Compare tool because it depends on components that are no longer available and fails to launch reliably on many Office installs. Because we can no longer provide updated components, it will no longer install with new Office setups. This applies to: Access 2019 volume licensed and Enterprise plans Access 2021, Access 2024, and Microsoft 365 subscriptions Access 2021 and Access 2024 as part of the Office 2021 and Office 2024 perpetual licenses (standalone versions) DatabaseCompare.exe is installed typically under the DCF folder of your Office installation (for example, C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\DCF\DATABASECOMPARE.EXE), and it often comes alongside Microsoft Spreadsheet Compare as part of Office Professional Plus or Microsoft 365. In addition, supporting DLLs and configuration files are located within the same DCF subfolder. These files handle database connections, reporting, and comparison functions. These files will be removed. If you're running an older version of Office and have a working version of this tool, you can continue to use it until June 20, 2026. After that, it will be removed and will not be available for download. Therefore, we advise you to find a replacement for Database Compare. You can find similar standalone tools that compare two Access databases from other vendors: AccessDiff: This tool easily compares all objects in Access, including forms, code modules, queries, macros, and more. It is designed to help users retrieve lost software and compare all objects in Access databases. AccdbMerge: This tool is an easy-to-use diff and merge tool for Microsoft Access database files. It compares table definitions, data, forms, modules, and more. A free version is available for the main database objects. DataWeigher: This tool compares and synchronizes data between two MS Access databases. It provides a visual result with each type of record (added, deleted, changed) represented by a different color. The comparison results can be saved as a report or SQL script for data synchronization. Total Access Detective: This tool allows you to find differences between any two objects in one Microsoft Access database, including fields, controls, properties, macro lines, module code, and data. It also supports comparing two blocks of text from text files on disk or the text you copy and paste. We recognize this change may require planning, and we encourage customers to review these alternatives and plan a transition away from Database Compare ahead of its retirement in June 2026.A Personal Note to the Access Community
Today is my last day at Microsoft. After many wonderful years, I have accepted Microsoft's Voluntary Retirement Program (VRP) and am beginning a new chapter. It feels a little surreal to write those words. For much of my career, I've had the privilege of working with products, communities, and people I deeply care about. In recent years, that has included serving as Program Manager for Microsoft Access, one of the most passionate, knowledgeable, and dedicated communities in technology. Before I go, there is one message I want to leave you with: Access is alive, well, and continuing to evolve. One of the most common questions I hear is, "Is Access going away?" The answer remains the same as it has always been: No. Access continues to ship with Microsoft 365 and Office, continues to receive engineering investment, continues to receive bug fixes, security updates, accessibility improvements, and yes, new features. In fact, we've released multiple new capabilities recently, including improvements such as enhanced zooming support, larger form and report design capabilities, and new developer-focused functionality, with additional features already in various stages of development and rollout. Over the last few years, I've had the opportunity to work alongside an incredibly talented engineering team that genuinely cares about Access and the customers who depend on it every day. I've seen firsthand the discussions, the prioritization meetings, the customer feedback reviews, the accessibility work, the bug triage sessions, and the long hours spent making sure Access continues to serve businesses, governments, schools, non-profits, and developers around the world. Access remains an important part of Microsoft's productivity ecosystem, and the team remains committed to keeping it relevant, reliable, and useful for years to come. I know many of you closely follow the public roadmap and occasionally worry when it's quiet. What doesn't always make it into public announcements is the steady stream of work happening behind the scenes: security investments, compliance work, accessibility improvements, bug fixes, customer-requested enhancements, and the engineering work required to keep a 30-plus-year-old product healthy in a rapidly changing technology landscape. As for what comes next, I don't yet know who the next Access PM will be or when that transition will occur. What I do know is that Access deserves thoughtful stewardship, active engagement with the community, and a clear understanding of why this product continues to matter. I am hopeful that whoever steps into that role will bring fresh ideas, curiosity, and a commitment to listening to the customers, MVPs, partners, and developers who make this community so special. To our MVPs: thank you for your advocacy, your feedback, and your willingness to tell us what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. Many of the features we've delivered started as customer requests, conference conversations, forum discussions, and MVP feedback. Your voices matter, and they have made the product better. To the Access developers around the world: thank you for continuing to build solutions that solve real problems. Every time someone says Access is only a relic of the past, I inevitably hear from another organization running a mission-critical application, supporting a small business, managing a research project, tracking inventory, or helping people get work done. The creativity and ingenuity of this community never cease to amaze me. And finally, thank you for letting me be part of your journey. It's been an honor to help tell the story of Access, share new features, write documentation, engage with the community, and occasionally fight to get your favorite feature request prioritized. While I'm retiring from Microsoft, I'll always be rooting for Access and the people who use it. The future of Access belongs to all of you, and I believe that future is bright. Thank you for your support, your passion, and your trust. See you around, Linda Cannon Former Program Manager, Microsoft AccessBug fixes in Microsoft Access - Current Channel Version 2605 (Build 16.0.20026.20118)
Bug Name Issue Fixed Edge Browser Control didn't render PDFs on some machines When the Edge Browser Control was used to display a PDF, on some machines the PDF would not render at all if the registry value "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pdf\Content Type" was missing. Access now provides the missing content type, so the Edge Browser Control can render the PDF. Export to SharePoint failed for tables with both lookup fields and attachment columns When exporting an Access table to a SharePoint list, if the table contained both a lookup field and an attachment column, the export could fail with an error. The export now handles this combination correctly, so the export completes successfully. Conditional Formatting color picker showed a reduced palette in Version 2604 A regression introduced in Version 2604 caused the Conditional Formatting color picker to display a smaller set of color choices than previous versions. The full legacy color palette has been restored. Some Unicode characters displayed incorrectly in objects exported to Excel When exporting an Access object whose name contained certain extended Unicode characters, the resulting file's sheet name displayed the characters incorrectly. These characters are now preserved correctly during export. Power BI Gateway couldn't refresh semantic models from .accdb files Refreshing a Power BI semantic model that connected to a .accdb file via the on-premises gateway could fail with "Unspecified error". Connection setup has been adjusted so the gateway can successfully refresh the model. Monaco SQL view: Ctrl+Z didn't undo Ctrl+Shift+K line deletion In the new Monaco-based SQL editor, pressing Ctrl+Shift+K to delete the current line removed the line, but a subsequent Ctrl+Z would not restore it. Undo now works correctly for this and similar editing operations. Document tab text didn't scale with Windows text-size setting When the Windows display setting for text size was increased, document tab labels and the record navigation bar continued to render at the standard size, while other Access UI scaled correctly. The document tabs and record navigation bar now honor the system text-size setting. Error when editing a Long Text field after a write conflict When a write conflict occurred on a record containing a Long Text field, subsequent attempts to edit the field could fail with an error. The data path now refreshes the cached field values correctly after a conflict so that further edits succeed. Access terminated unexpectedly when reading Edge Browser Control properties in form design view In form design view, retrieving the ReadyState or LocationUrl property on an Edge Browser Control could cause Access to terminate unexpectedly. Both properties now return safely in design view. "Copy" prefix was prepended instead of appended to copied object names When duplicating a database object, Access named the copy "Copy of Form1" instead of "Form1 - Copy". This made copies of related objects sort apart from their originals in the Navigation Pane. Copy-of names now append the suffix, so related objects stay together when sorted alphabetically.Zoom in or out of forms, tables, and queries when in Form View or Datasheet View
Access now lets you zoom in and out when you’re working with forms, tables, and queries in Form View or Datasheet View. Zoom in for a closer look at your data or zoom out to see more on screen at once. You can adjust the zoom level using the Zoom button on the ribbon, the zoom slider on the status bar, or keyboard shortcuts. Zoom is also available in Print Preview for reports. Zoom isn’t supported in Report View or Design View. This feature is available in Access for Microsoft 365, version 2605 and later. Choose a magnification setting from the ribbon On the Home tab, select Zoom and choose one of the following options: 50%, 75%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, or 500%. To return the view to 100% zoom, click Zoom 100%. If you prefer to use the keyboard, you can press Ctrl + Alt + 0 (zero). Use the zoom slider to quickly zoom in or out On the status bar in the lower right-hand corner of Access, select the zoom slider. Slide to the percentage zoom setting that you want. Press – or + to zoom in gradual increments. Use zoom keyboard shortcuts or mousewheel To zoom in, press Ctrl + Alt + Plus (+). To zoom out, press Ctrl + Alt + Minus (-). To return to 100% magnification, press Ctrl + Alt + 0 (zero). To use the mousewheel and scroll to zoom in or out, press Ctrl + mousewheel. Change your default zoom percentage Access doesn't save zoom settings on closing and reopening a form. Instead, it opens your form using the default zoom setting. To set your zoom default percentage, choose File > Options > Current Database > Application Options and choose the Default Zoom setting. Note Content inside of ActiveX controls, such as the text in a TreeView control, doesn't resize when zoomed. Zooming in Access only affects Access-native controls. If a form uses ActiveX controls, consider replacing them with native Access controls so they scale with the rest of the form.Access bug fixes — Versions 2511 through 2601
Version 2511 (Build 19426) Bug Name Issue Fixed Query Design view showed incorrect joins after selecting SQL text When using the Monaco SQL editor with a query containing multiple joins, selecting text in SQL view with Ctrl+A and then switching back to Design View could trigger a spurious alert and cause one of the joins to appear removed in the design grid. The underlying SQL wasn't actually affected, but the Design view displayed incorrect join information. This is corrected so that switching between SQL view and Design view preserves all joins accurately. Version 2512 (Build 19530) Bug Name Issue Fixed Datasheet forms with nested subforms showing errors after system changes When using datasheet forms containing nested subforms on systems where a system change occurs — such as disconnecting and reconnecting a Remote Desktop session — Access could display a GDI error. This happened because collapsed sublists held references to system brushes that were destroyed during the system change. This is fixed so that all sublists properly handle system resource changes. F4 key did not open the Properties pane in the Query SQL editor When the Monaco SQL editor was enabled, pressing F4 in the Query editor's SQL view didn't properly open the Properties pane. Instead, the pane would either flash briefly or appear incorrectly positioned in the top-left corner of the screen. The F4 shortcut now correctly opens the Properties pane in SQL view. Pressing F5 in the Query SQL editor cleared all SQL text When using the Monaco SQL editor in the Query designer, pressing F5 (Run) could clear all the SQL text from the editor. This is fixed so that running a query with F5 no longer affects the SQL text in the editor. Text not visible when renaming items in the Navigation Pane in dark themes When using the Black (or other dark) Office theme, renaming an object in the Navigation pane resulted in text that was nearly invisible due to insufficient contrast. The rename text box now uses appropriate colors that provide sufficient contrast in all themes. Advanced Filter/Sort opened a standalone query window instead of a filter window When opening a table in Datasheet view and selecting Sort & Filter > Advanced > Advanced Filter/Sort from the ribbon, Access incorrectly opened a full standalone query design window instead of the expected limited filter query window. The filter query window includes a Toggle Filter button to apply the query as a filter. This is corrected, so the command opens the proper filter window. Refreshing an Access ODBC connection in Excel returned an error When refreshing an ODBC connection to an Access database from Excel, users could receive the error "Operation is not supported for this type of object." This is resolved so that Access ODBC connections refresh successfully. Please continue to let us know if this is helpful and share any feedback you have.Access announces removal of Salesforce ODBC driver in October 2025
MS Access 2019 (and newer) ships a licensed Salesforce ODBC driver from InsightSoftware that will lose sustaining support after June 30th, 2026. But because we can no longer provide updates for the driver, the Access team has decided to accelerate the removal of this driver and remove it from the product in October 2025. Applies to: Access 2019 volume licensed and Enterprise plans Access 2021, Access 2024, and Microsoft 365 subscriptions Access 2021 and Access 2024 as part of the Office 2021 and Office 2024 perpetual licenses (standalone versions) The Salesforce ODBC driver bundled with Office includes shared libraries such as: libcurl.dll libcrypto-3.dll libssl-3.dll These libraries are located under the following path: Program Files\Microsoft Office\ODBC Drivers\Salesforce. They may also be present in different locations. Drivers installed by Office and used to access your Salesforce data will be removed on permanently on October 28, if you are using Access as part of a Microsoft 365 Apps monthly version and on November 11 if you are on the semi-annual release. For customers using perpetual Access 2019, 2021, or 2024, the drivers will be removed on November 11. You do not need to manually remove the drivers. Access currently doesn't have a way to talk directly to the Salesforce APIs so customers must continue to use the standardized ODBC driver framework that we currently support. Customers can independently purchase the Simba.DLL driver if needed from InsightSoftware. There are also other vendors that offer a Salesforce driver. Simba driver from InsightsSoftware https://insightsoftware.com/simba/ ODBC driver from devart https://www.devart.com/odbc/salesforce/ Salesforce integration from boomi https://boomi.com/solutions/application/salesforce/ Salesforce driver from cdata https://www.cdata.com/drivers/salesforce Once you purchase and install the driver, Access can connect to your Salesforce external data source. On the External Data ribbon, choose New Data Source > From Other Sources > ODBC Database We will provide more updates when available.End of support for Access 2016 and Access 2019 nears
Your product will still work, but when Microsoft says a product has reached "end of support", it means the product will no longer receive: Security updates Non-security updates Bug fixes New features Assisted support (free or paid) What this means for Access users: No more updates: Customers will not receive any new builds, patches, or improvements—even if vulnerabilities are discovered. No support: Microsoft will no longer provide technical support or troubleshooting assistance. Increased risk: Continued use of unsupported software can expose systems to security threats and compliance issues. Migration encouraged: Customers are advised to upgrade to a supported version or product to maintain security and functionality. We strongly encourage all Access users with perpetual licenses to upgrade to a Microsoft 365 Apps subscription. Subscription users get more out of the same Office desktop apps with artificial intelligence (AI) backed design ideas and analytic insights, rich contents and templates, cloud powered connected experiences and more. They also enjoy additional benefits beyond capabilities in Office apps, such as 1TB storage, Office on multiple devices and mobile, Microsoft Family Safey app, etc. I've noticed many perpetual users are "subscription adverse." I hear "I've used the desktop version forever and prefer not to switch to the cloud." Migrating to subscription does not mean that you'll get a different version of Access. You'll still get the desktop version you know and love, plus all the premium Office features a subscription provides. My favorites are Editor in Word, Money in Excel, and all the extra OneDrive storage. Check with Microsoft Sales Support to see if you're eligible for upgrade incentives depending on your region or organization type. (Yes, we know the Access icon does not appear with the other Office apps. You'll find it directly below the icons in the alphabetized apps list.) Sources: End of support for Office 2016 and 2019 Overview - Product End of Support and Retirements - Microsoft Lifecycle Access 2016 - Microsoft Lifecycle Access 2019 - Microsoft LifecycleAccess releases bug fixes in version 2506
Bug Name Issue Fixed Error when trying to run append query When an update/append query qualified column references (e.g., Table1.Field1) the reference might fail to resolve and produce an error reading “The INSERT INTO statement contains the following unknown field name: Table1.Field1” Error when trying to save or run a query containing certain characters For queries containing some Unicode characters, attempting to run or save the query could generate the error “The SQL statement is invalid.” Can't create a query directly in SQL view We have now added a button to the Queries section of the Create ribbon to allow you to create a new query opened to the SQL editor, rather than the QBE (Query-By-Example) designer Exporting data to a text file might export some characters incorrectly When exporting data containing some Unicode characters and choosing the “Export data with formatting and layout” option, invalid characters would sometimes be output to the text file. Using the clipboard to transfer data from tables/queries to text did not work for some Unicode characters Access was not rendering text from tables/queries with the CF_UNICODETEXT format so when you copied a table/query from the Navigation Pane, then pasted into a destination that accepted text, Unicode characters might not be preserved When exporting to Email using the HTML format Unicode characters might not be preserved Some characters would be replaced by question marks rather than preserving the original content when exporting to HTML Email When exporting a table with a relationship but no lookup defined Access may hang during the validation step During export Access tries to create a lookup in Dataverse that corresponds to a lookup defined in Access for related tables. However, if a relationship was defined but there was no lookup defined for the foreign key, then Access could hang during the export process. If the Display Form option is set in the Options dialog, then any time the Options dialog is closed you incorrectly get a message saying that you must close and reopen the database for changes to take effect This could happen even if no changes were made. Access will now only generate this message if you really do need to close and reopen the database for changes to take effect.
