Introduction:
We get fairly frequent questions on here about why settings (including both values AND formatting) of unbound controls on a form, are not stored for reference later, but instead, each setting seems to be applied to EVERY instance of the control, for all records that show.

I will try to lay down all the reasoning and arguments that occur to me. Sometimes, it's harder to explain things when they appear to be self-evident. To me, this is entirely logical behaviour, so please feel free to say if this doesn't make understanding the situation any easier.

Reasoning:
Firstly, we should consider that a form, in Access, is a view of underlying recordset data. It is conceptually like a window. It can have pretty things stuck on around the side, but ultimately, it is a way of viewing data in an underlying (bound) recordset. It can also be used just to show the pretty things (unbound controls, unrelated to the underlying recordset), but we're not interested in that side of things for now.

Although the form can show various records, it doesn't itself, at any stage, store any of the values. Apart from the underlying recordset, nor does it make any arrangements to remember any settings for any of its controls. Although it appears to have a whole set of instances of itself (in continuous forms or datasheet modes), it only ever has as many instances as can be shown at any one time on the screen. All these instances are exact copies. Change any setting (including the value) and this will effect each and every one of them.

Points to Ponder:
For a control to maintain and persist associated data (as opposed to letting the data be managed by the underlying recordset), the whole concept would have to be fundamentally reorganised. More resources would be required (either a temp table just for this transient task or dynamically assigned RAM). Although maintaing such resources for a data set, for which originally at least, the limits may yet be unknown, is possible, it is not a trivial thing and would certainly introduce complication into a situation which doesn't really require it. I can't resist adding here that, with MS's reputation for losing track of resources and not closing stuff down properly - would this be a good move?

As I mentioned earlier though, the form is like a window that allows both viewing and access (manipulation) of a small subset of the recordset at a time. Extending the concept to handle a full recordset, without linking that to the recordset itself (using Bound controls in other words) would not even be desirable. It would actually fit the logic less well and be some sort of hybrid that made PROPER sense to no-one.