Microsoft Support & Discussions

Using AI tools like Copilot for creating learning courses may raise some issues for instructional designers. However, I do not share these concerns, but they exist. AI has a potential to change the way instructional design is done by automating tasks like instructional design, graphic design, and accessibility, which rely on AI's ability to find relevant content. Some instructional designers are not happy with the features that Copilot offers right now, feeling that they are not enough to help them in their work. I find it very useful in the development stages of content creation because of some of Copilot's features. Some of the problems reported by deve…

Get the inside scoop on Viva Amplify. This episode is like a gift to your future work "comms pro" personality. All the heartache of manual copy/pasting into various internal distribution channels will fade away. And what shines through? The ability to communicate like a pro with the broadest reach and impact for your internal news and campaigns - big or small. You’ll hear from Liz Sundet (Senior Customer Experience program manager at Microsoft), a wonderful technologist and trainer focused on getting Microsoft customers prepared to use Microsoft Viva Amplify. Liz shares her thoughts on this communicator’s app, best practices for internal comms, and insights into ho…

Emily van Putten, a Security MVP from the Netherlands, has been leading the dissemination of information on cloud security through community activities. She also focuses on promoting the success of women in the IT industry. Her numerous achievements have led to her selection as one of the top 25 talents for TEDxAmsterdamWomen Talent Night. In this blog post, we will share her past activities and future aspirations in her own words, highlighting how she stands on stage to convey her experiences and beliefs, continuously inspiring people about diversity and inclusion. *Picture Credits: Suzan Alberts ---------- Tell us about your community activities …

The convergence of Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) has disrupted industries across the globe. However, today’s threat landscape coupled with the developing force of AI have introduced new security challenges—particularly in the realm of industrial processes and critical infrastructure. As a follow up to our announcement at RSA in April, we take a closer look at how security teams can utilize Microsoft Defender XDR to protect OT environments from emerging threats and ensure their safety, productivity, and reliability. [HEADING=1]Why yesterday's OT security is no longer enough[/HEADING] As a vital part of business processes, …

Microsoft runs on trust. Trustworthy engineering and secure experiences from chip to cloud are central to the Surface strategy, with the strongest platform protections and powerful Windows 11 Pro security capabilities enabled by default. As we move towards an AI-enabled future, Microsoft Surface helps you strengthen your security posture across hardware, OS, data, apps and identity through a foundation of built-in protection. Let’s delve into what this means for you and your Surface. A foundation of built-in protection from design to retirement. [HEADING=2] Security even before you power on[/HEADING] Your Surface device is built secure before you fir…

Dive into the latest enhancements for Excel for the web, where we've streamlined your spreadsheet experience to be more intuitive and efficient. Now, previewing hyperlinks, customizing your view, renaming sheets, and more, is smoother than ever, allowing you to focus on what matters most—your data. Hyperlink Previews Now, when you hover over web or internal links, you'll see improved hyperlink previews with options to copy, edit, or remove the link. If a thumbnail of the linked page is available, you'll see that too, giving you a better idea of where the link will take you. Hyperlink previews [HEADING=2]Easily Adjust Zoom in Status Bar [/HEADING] …

Ledger technology is a way of storing data that ensures its integrity, immutability, and verifiability. It can be used for scenarios where trust and transparency are essential, such as financial transactions, supply chain tracking, or regulatory compliance. Azure offers two services that leverage ledger technology to provide tamper-proof data storage: ledger in Azure SQL Database and Azure Confidential Ledger. In this blog post, we will compare these two services and help you decide which one is best suited for your needs. [HEADING=1]What is ledger in Azure SQL Database?[/HEADING] Ledger is a technology that offers the power of Blockchain in Azure SQL Database. …

Know a little Python and want to build web applications with Python backends? We've got you covered! We put on a 6-part series in June walking through the basics of web apps, the most popular Python frameworks (Flask, Django, FastAPI), containerization with Docker, deployment to Azure, and testing tools (Playwright, pytest). Follow the links below to watch those recordings and follow along at your own pace with our open-source sample projects! If you're a teacher, you can adapt the slides and projects for your students. You can get the editable versions from the slides repository. [HEADING=1] [/HEADING] An overview of the world of backend web developmen…

Have you ever wanted to deploy your code to the cloud, but felt overwhelmed by the complexity and options? Do you wish there was a way to learn the basics of cloud computing while working on your own project? If so, you're not alone. Many developers struggle with the learning curve and the decision fatigue of choosing the right cloud service for their needs. That's why we created Learn Cloud, a VS Code extension that guides you through the process of deploying your code to the cloud, with easy-to-follow steps, interactive explanations, and customized recommendations. Whether you have an existing codebase or you want to start from a beginner friendly starter project…

Customers leverage Change Data Capture (CDC) with Azure SQL Managed Instance in various configurations. Although CDC operates smoothly after a local failover to a secondary replica in SQL Managed Instance Business Critical, it is not designed to function seamlessly after a geo failover within a Failover Group configuration. This applies to both General Purpose and Business Critical tiers. This step-by-step guide will assist you in configuring CDC to work seamlessly with a Failover Group configuration, ensuring that changes continue to be captured after a geo failover. Prerequisites: Two SQL MI instances configured as failover group partners. A user database to be …

We are excited to introduce the WDK NuGet, a new offering that enables developers to build drivers for Windows. The WDK is the essential tool for developing, testing and deploying drivers on the Windows platform. It provides the headers, libraries, tools and metadata that you need to create drivers for Windows devices. Previously, the WDK was available as an MSI installer or an ISO file. The WDK NuGet contains the compiled code, libraries, headers, tools and metadata for driver development. You can easily consume the WDK NuGet package by adding it to your project and then calling its functionality in your project code. The WDK NuGet offer some advantages over …

Azure Innovate and Azure Migrate and Modernize are built to work together to enable simpler adoption of Azure—the foundation of the Microsoft Cloud. Partners can drive more value with comprehensive resources, extensive coverage across scenarios, and tailored incentives in one easy to navigate hub - so you can deliver better customer experiences. Now there are even bigger opportunities on the horizon with Azure Essentials - foundational guidance and best practices to help you elevate security, reliability, and ongoing performance for cloud and AI workloads. What's new: A new Innovate with Azure AI Platform scenario for pre-sales and post-sales. Evolving Build and …

This article shows a comparison of features available for the different deployment options under AKS enabled by Azure Arc. AKS on Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2 AKS Edge Essentials AKS on Windows Server and AKS on Azure Stack HCI 22H2 Supported infrastructure where the Kubernetes clusters are hosted Azure Stack HCI, version 23H2 Windows 10/11 IoT Enterprise Windows 10/11 Enterprise Windows 10/11 Pro Windows Server 2019/2022 Azure Stack HCI 22H2 Windows Server 2019 Windows Server 2022 CNCF conformant? Yes Yes Yes K8s cluster lifecycle management tools (create, scale, upgrade and …

We’re excited to further optimize the delivery of continuous innovation in Windows 11 with new checkpoint cumulative updates.[1] As early as late 2024, you will automatically get this optimization on any devices running Windows 11, version 24H2 or later, as well as on Windows Server 2025. Keeping your organization updated and secure will involve smaller, faster, and more sustainable updates, with no action required from you. Keep reading to learn how you can preview this experience today in Windows Insider Preview Build 26120.1252 (Dev Channel). Tip: Windows 11, version 24H2 will be available as a traditional feature update to all devices later this year. […

Phi-3-mini is deployed in different edge devices, such as iPhone/Android, AIPC/Copilot+PC, as well as cloud and IoT, citing the cross-platform and flexibility of SLM. If you want to follow these deployment methods, you can follow the content of the Phi-3 Cookbook. In model reference, computing power is essential. Through the quantized model, SLM can be deployed and run on a GPU or a traditional CPU. In this topic, we will focus on the model reference of WebGPU. [HEADING=1]What's WebGPU？[/HEADING] “WebGPU is a JavaScript API provided by a web browser that enables webpage scripts to efficiently utilize a device's graphics processing unit. This is achieved with the und…

Azure AI Video Indexer collaborated with the Phi-3 team to introduce a Textual Video Summary capability on Edge. This collaboration showcases the utilization of the SLM, Phi-3 model, enabling the Azure AI Video Indexer team to extend the same LLM based summarization capabilities that are available for the cloud, to also be available on the Edge. This comes following Build’s 2024 announcements of the integration of Azure AI Video Indexer with language models to generate textual summaries of videos and the expansion of the Phi-3 models family. The feature is accessible both in the cloud, utilizing Azure Open AI, and at the Edge via the Phi-3-mini-4k-instruct model…

If you are a document creator, you know how challenging it can be to produce high-quality, engaging, and informative content. You must research, write, edit, format, and proofread your work while keeping your audience and purpose in mind. Sometimes, you may need to generate new content from existing sources, update your content to suit different contexts, organize your content more clearly, or transform your content into different formats or languages. To support these workflows, it’s often easier to reference or build upon existing content. That’s why we’ve added the ability to draft with Copilot based on a specific selection in your Word doc. This will help to:…

Discover strategic best practices and gain insights into how to adapt your B2B marketing initiatives for evolving customer needs in the new AI era of digital marketing. Marketing experts from Microsoft share their unique perspectives on how to drive growth, address customer challenges, and increase customer engagement along the sales journey within a rapidly changing marketing landscape. Join us for this partner exclusive webinar and start paving the way for your business’s success in the digital age. Register today and be part of the conversation that will shape the future of marketing. Event Speakers: Paulina Bobb ,Global Partner Marketing Manager for Busine…

We are super excited to announce the Public Preview of Fast Transcription service in Azure AI Speech, which allows customers and developers to transcribe audio file to text accurately and synchronously, with a high speed factor. Fast Transcription service includes our latest end-to-end model technologies, with best quality and super high Speed Factor leveraging GPU inference (it can transcribe a 30-minute audio file in less than 1 minute). Supported Locales: en-US, zh-CN, fr-FR, it-IT, es-ES, es-MX, ja-JP, ko-KR, pt-BR, hi-IN (more coming soon, learn more about language support in Speech service) Supported Regions: East US, Southeast Asia, West Eur…

In today’s fast-paced business environment, intelligent business processes and efficient collaboration are key to the success of organizations. A recent study by Microsoft on AI has shown that 71% of organizations are already using AI to add value to and speed up their business processes, the report also states that for every $1 invested organizations are seeing a return of 3.5X their investments. SAP systems have data related to business processes while the Microsoft Graph has data related to collaboration such as emails, chats, schedules etc. To use both these forms of data together with AI would transform the business processes of many organizations. As eve…

[JUSTIFY]In today's digital landscape, the integrity and confidentiality of transactional data are paramount. Microsoft’s Azure Confidential Ledger offers a robust solution for maintaining the privacy and confidentiality of your data. The service utilizes cryptographic techniques to generate transaction receipts, which serve as immutable evidence of the ledger's state at a specific point in time. These receipts are crucial for businesses that require a high level of trust and transparency in their operations. [/JUSTIFY] [HEADING=1][JUSTIFY]Write receipts[/JUSTIFY][/HEADING] [JUSTIFY]The value proposition of Azure Confidential Ledger write receipts lies in their…

We're excited to share a summary of the Azure Database for MySQL - Flexible Server announcements from last month, as well as the latest roadmap of upcoming features! [HEADING=1]July 2024 Live webinar[/HEADING] These updates and the latest roadmap are also covered in our Monthly Live Webinar on YouTube (Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel!), which streams the second Wednesday of every month, at 7:30 AM Pacific time. Below is a link to the session recording of the live webinar we delivered last week: [HEADING=1]June 2024 updates and announcements[/HEADING] [HEADING=2]Move from private access (VNet integrated) connectivity…

In this guest blog post, Mitesh Shah, Director of Cloud Product Management, GTM, Alliances at Denodo Technologies, explains how the Denodo Platform along with Microsoft Fabric enables a robust data integration, data management, and data delivery platform in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Learn how you can extend your data analytics and generative AI use cases and deliver smart data management in real time. Data landscape and business challenge Enterprises deal with massive amounts of data that have become the backbone for advanced analytics and generative AI projects. As the data volume continues to grow, it is often fragmented and siloed across multiple da…

We are thrilled to announce the General Availability (GA) of Agent and Gateway Server Extensions in Azure Monitor SCOM MI, a new capability that allows you to initiate monitoring on Azure and Arc enabled Windows machines at-scale and programmatically. More about this capability at Monitor Azure and Off-Azure Virtual machines. [HEADING=1]Key benefits and capabilities[/HEADING] Extensions for Agents and Gateways offer the following benefits: Monitor workloads everywhere: SCOM MI can monitor VMs and guest applications that are hosted on Azure or off-Azure using Arc channel. With Managed Gateways, you can monitor air-gapped & isolated VMs. At-scale deployme…

In the rapidly evolving world of technology, AI stands at the forefront of innovation. However, with great power comes great responsibility. As developers, we play a pivotal role in shaping the future of AI, ensuring it aligns with ethical standards and societal values. Microsoft is committed to guiding developers on this journey with resources and tools designed to develop responsible AI. [HEADING=1]Understanding Responsible AI[/HEADING] At its core, responsible AI is about developing, deploying, and managing AI systems in a manner that is ethical, secure, and inclusive. Microsoft champions this approach through six fundamental principles: Fairness …