Overview

Web-to-app linking allows you to drive user engagement by associating your app with a website. When users open a link to your website, instead of opening the browser, your app is launched. If your app is not installed, your website is opened in the browser as usual. By implementing this feature, you can achieve greater app engagement from your users while also offering them a richer experience. For example, this could help address situations where your users may not get the best experience through the browser (e.g. on mobile devices or on desktop PCs where the app is more full-featured that the website).

To enable web-to-app linking you will need:

• A JSON file that declares the association between your app (Package Family Name) and your website
  • This JSON file needs to be placed in the root of the host (website) or in the “.well-known” subfolder
• To register for AppUriHandlers in your app’s manifest
• To modify the protocol activation in your app’s logic to handle web URIs as well

To show how this feature can be integrated with your apps and websites, we will use the following scenario:

You are a developer that is passionate about Narwhals. You have a website—narwhalfacts.azurewebsites.net—as well as an app—NarwhalFacts —and you would like to create a tight association between them. In doing so, users can click a link to your content and be launched in the app instead of the browser. This gives the user the added benefits of the native app, like being able to view the content, even while offline. Furthermore, you have made significant investments in the app and created a beautiful and enjoyable experience that you want all of your users to enjoy.

Step 1: Open and run the NarwhalFacts App in Visual Studio

First download the source code for Narwhal Facts from the following location:

https://github.com/project-rome/AppUriHandlers/tree/master/NarwhalFacts

Next, launch Visual Studio 2015 from the Start menu. Then, go to Open → Project/Solution…:

Go to the folder that contains NarwhalFacts’ source code and open the NarwhalFacts.sln Visual Studio solution file.

When the solution opens, run the app on the local machine:

You will see the home page and a menu icon on the left. Select the icon to see the many pages of narwhal content the app offers.

Step 2: View the mirrored content on the web

Copy the following link:

http://narwhalfacts.azurewebsites.net/

Paste it into your browser’s address bar and navigate to it. Notice how the content on the web is almost identical to the content offered in the app.

Step 3: Register to handle http and https links in the app manifest

In order to utilize web-to-app links, your app needs to identify the URIs for the websites it would like to handle. This is accomplished by adding an extension registration for Windows.appUriHandler in your app’s manifest file, Package.appxmanifest.

In the Solution Explorer in Visual Studio, right-click Package.appxmanifest and select View Code.

Notice the code in between the Application tags in the app manifest:

    ...

The above code tells the system that you would like to register to handle links from the specified host. If your website has multiple addresses like m.example.com, www.example.com, and example.com then you will need a separate host listed for each.

You might notice that this is similar to a custom protocol registration with windows.protocol. Registering for app linking is very similar to custom protocol schemes with the added bonus that the links will fall back gracefully to the browser if your app isn’t installed.

Step 4: Verify that your app is associated with your website with a JSON file on the host web server

To ensure only your app can open content to your website, you must also include your Package Family Name in a JSON file located in the web server root or at the well-known directory on the domain. This signifies your website giving consent for the listed apps to open your content. You can find the Package Family Name in the Packages section of the app manifest designer.

Go to the JSON directory in the NarwhalFacts source code and open the JSON file named windows-app-web-link.

Important

The JSON file should not have a .json file suffix.

Once the file is open, observe the contents in the file:

[{
  "packageFamilyName": "NarwhalFacts_9jmtgj1pbbz6e",
  "paths": [ "*" ],
  "excludePaths" : [ "/habitat*, /lifespan*" ]
 }]

Wildcards

The example above demonstrates the use of wildcards. Wildcards allow you to support a wide variety of links with just a few lines of code, similar to regular expressions. Web to app linking supports two wildcards in the JSON file:

For instance, the example above will support all paths that start with narwhalfacts.azurewebsites.net except those that include “/habitat” and “/lifespan”. So narwhalfacts.azurewebsites.net/diet.htmlwill be supported, but narwhalfacts.azurewebsites.net/habitat.html, will not.

Excluded paths

To provide the best experience for your users, make sure that online only content is excluded from the supported paths in this JSON file. For example, “/habitat” and “/lifespan” are excluded in the example above. Wildcards are supported in the excluded paths as well. Also, excluded paths take precedence over paths.

Multiple apps

[{
  "packageFamilyName": "NarwhalFacts_9jmtgj1pbbz6e",
  "paths": [ "*" ],
  "excludePaths" : [ "/habitat*, /lifespan*" ]
 },
 {
  "packageFamilyName": "NarwhalAppTwo_32js90j1p9jmtg",
  "paths": [ "/example*, /links*" ]
 }]

If you have two apps that you would like to link to your website, just list both of the application Package Family Names in your windows-app-web-link file. Both apps can be supported with the user making the choice of which is the default link if both are installed. Made the wrong choice at first? Users can change their mind in Settings > Apps for Websites later.

Step 5: Handle links on Activation to deep link to content

Go to App.xaml.cs and notice the code in the OnActivated method:

protected override void OnActivated(IActivatedEventArgs e)
{
    Frame rootFrame = Window.Current.Content as Frame;

    if (rootFrame == null)
    {
        // Create a Frame to act as the navigation context and navigate to the first page
        rootFrame = new Frame();
        rootFrame.NavigationFailed += OnNavigationFailed;

        Window.Current.Content = rootFrame;
    }

    Type deepLinkPageType = typeof(MainPage);
    if (e.Kind == ActivationKind.Protocol)
    {
        var protocolArgs = (ProtocolActivatedEventArgs)e;       
        switch (protocolArgs.Uri.AbsolutePath)
        {
            case "/":
                break;
            case "/index.html":
                break;
            case "/classification.html":
                deepLinkPageType = typeof(ClassificationPage);
                break;
            case "/diet.html":
                deepLinkPageType = typeof(DietPage);
                break;
            case "/anatomy.html":
                deepLinkPageType = typeof(AnatomyPage);
                break;
            case "/population.html":
                deepLinkPageType = typeof(PopulationPage);
                break;
        }
    }

    if (rootFrame.Content == null)
    {
        // Default navigation
        rootFrame.Navigate(deepLinkPageType, e);
    }

    // Ensure the current window is active
    Window.Current.Activate();
}

Don’t Forget!:           

Make sure to replace the final if statement logic in the existing code with:

rootFrame.Navigate(deepLinkPageType, e);

This is the final step in enabling deep linking to your app from http and https links, let’s see it in action!

Step 6: Test it out!

Press Play to run your application to verify that it launches successfully.

Observe that the application is running, if you run into issues, double check the code in steps 3 and 5.

Because our path logic is in OnActivated, close the NarwhalFacts application so that we can see if the app is activated when you click a link!

Copy the following link

http://narwhalfacts.azurewebsites.net/classification.html

Remember to make sure the NarwhalFacts app is closed and press Windows Key  + R to open the Run application and paste (Control + V) the link in the window. You should see your app launch instead of the web browser!

If you would like to see how the protocol activation logic works. Set a breakpoint by clicking on the grey bar to the left of the switch statement in your OnActivated event.

By clicking links you should see that the app launches instead of the browser! This will drive users to your app experience instead of the web experience when one is available.

Additionally, you can test your app by launching it from another app using the LaunchUriAsync API. You can use this API to test on phones as well. The Association Launching sample is another great resource to learn more about LaunchUriAsync.

Note: In the current version of this feature, any links in the browser (Edge), will keep you in the browsing experience.

Local validation tool

You can test the configuration of your app and website by running the App host registration verifier tool which is available in:

%windir%\system32\AppHostRegistrationVerifier.exe

Test the configuration of your app and website by running this tool with the following parameters:

AppHostRegistrationVerifier.exehostname packagefamilyname filepath

• Hostname: Your website (e.g. microsoft.com)
• Package Family Name (PFN): Your app’s PFN
• File path: The JSON file for local validation (e.g. C:\SomeFolder\windows-app-web-link)

Note: If the tool does not return anything, validation will work on that file when uploaded. If there is an error code, it will not work.

Registry key for path validation

Additionally, by enabling the following registry key you can force path matching for side-loaded apps (as part of local validation):

HKCU\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModel\SystemAppData\Your_App\AppUriHandlers

• Keyname: ForceValidation
• Value: 1

AppUriHandlers tips:

• Make sure to only specify links that your app can handle.
• List all of the hosts that you will support. Note that www.example.com and example.com are different hosts.
• Users can choose which app they prefer to handle websites in Settings -> Apps for Websites.
• Your JSON file must be uploaded to an https server.
• If you need to change the paths that you wish to support, you can republish your JSON file without republishing your app. Users will see the changes in 1-8 days.
• All sideloaded apps with AppUriHandlers will have validated links for the host on install. You do not need to have a JSON file uploaded to test the feature.
• This feature works whenever your app is a UWP app launched with LaunchUriAsync or a classic Windows application launched with ShellExecuteEx. If the URI corresponds to a registered App URI handler, the app will be launched instead of the browser.

See also

• windows.protocol registration
• Handle URI Activation

Download Visual Studio to get started.

The Windows team would love to hear your feedback.  Please keep the feedback coming using our Windows Developer UserVoice site. If you have a direct bug, please use the Windows Feedback tool built directly into Windows 10.

Hi Everyone,

This is Kim Johnson from the Windows 10 client supportability team.  I wanted to share some exciting news around some new updates for display scaling issues in Skype for Business 2016 and PowerPoint 2016.  In previous blogs we discussed some of the issues encountered with display scaling on high dpi devices:

· Display Scaling changes for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

· Display Scaling in Windows 10

We also have a KB article that discusses these issues:  Windows scaling issues for high-DPI devices

The Office team has released updates to address some of these scaling issues with Skype for Business 2016 and PowerPoint 2016.  Please take a look at the following support article which tells you prerequisites and how to get the update:

· Office apps appear the wrong size or blurry on external monitors

Before we get into all of last week’s updates, check out this highlight. (It’s a big deal):

C++/WinRT provides C++ developers with first-class access to the modern Windows API. @Github@kennykerrhttps://t.co/Fw9BqFgY3Kpic.twitter.com/TkXmwiDceI

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) October 13, 2016

Cross device experiences and Project Rome

We read the morning news on our tablets, check email during the morning commute on our phones and use our desktop PCs when at work. At night, we watch movies on our home media consoles. The Windows platform targets devices ranging from desktop PCs, laptops and smartphones, to large-screen hubs, HoloLens, wearable devices, IoT and Xbox.

With all of these devices playing important roles in the daily lives of users, it’s easy to think about apps in a device-centric bubble. This blog explains how to make your UX more human-centric instead of device centric to create the best possible UX.

Create multi-device experiences with the UWP Remote Systems API and Project Rome. https://t.co/oupJJdCfnj

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) October 11, 2016

Building Augmented Reality Apps in five Steps

Augmented reality is really cool (and surprisingly easy). We outline how to create an augmented reality app in five steps. Take a look at the boat!

Create a Windows 10 Augmented Reality (AR) experience for in 5 steps: https://t.co/SukDJmm7v0

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) October 12, 2016

BUILD 14946 for PC and Mobile

In our latest build we’ve got customized precision touchpad experiences, separated screen time-out settings, updated Wi-Fi settings for PC and Mobile and an important note about a chance to automatic updates.

Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 14946 for PC and Mobile

IoT on Xbox One: Best for You Sample Fitness App

“Best For You is a sample fitness UWP app focused on collecting data from a fictional IoT enabled yoga wear and presenting it to the user in a meaningful and helpful way on all of their devices to track health and progress of exercise. In this post, we will be focusing on the IoT side of the Universal Windows Platform as well as Azure IoT Hub and how they work together to create an end-to-end IoT solution.”

Also, the sample code is on GitHub. Click below to get started!

Check out the IoT side of the #UWP& Azure IoT Hub and see how it creates an end-to-end IoT solution in this blog: https://t.co/i7Q86Cd4kMpic.twitter.com/Hy6dHxEbNy

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) October 13, 2016

Narwhals (and AppURI Handlers)

‘Nuf said.

The Narwhal Facts UWP app uses AppURIHandlers to link the app to their website & simplify the user experience. https://t.co/ppa0kE2uA0

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) October 14, 2016

Download Visual Studio to get started!

The Windows team would love to hear your feedback.  Please keep the feedback coming using our Windows Developer UserVoice site. If you have a direct bug, please use the Windows Feedback tool built directly into Windows 10.

Windows 7 with SP1

Support Lifecycle: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle?C2=14019

This blog post is part of a series of posts, detailing the build process and activating capabilities of a KMS host on a particular host operating system. The operating system dictates which KMS host key (CSVLK) can be installed on that particular host, and that CSVLK determines what KMS-capable clients can be activated. When implementing KMS activation in an environment, it is best to determine all of the potential volume license operating systems for your KMS clients and then pick the best key. To simplify this, it is recommended that the most current KMS CSVLK be used, insuring that all KMS-capable operating systems that have been released at that time can be activated. For newer KMS CSVLKs to be hosted on previously released operating systems, a hotfix is needed to make the host operating system aware of the newer operating system.

Note: Desktop KMS CSVLKs can only be installed on hosts with desktop operating systems (that support that CSVLK) and Server KMS CSVLKs can only be installed on hosts with server operating systems (that support that CSVLK).

This blog post pertains to a KMS host with Windows 7 with SP1 as the operating system.

Windows 7 can host the following desktop KMS CSVLKs:

• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows 8.1
• Windows 10

The KMS CSVLKs can activate the following KMS clients:

KMS Host Build Steps:

1. Install Windows 7 with SP1
2. Patch completely
3. If a firewall is used, verify that there is an exception for KMS
4. Obtain the desired CSVLK from the VLSC site
5. If the KMS CSVLK is newer than the Windows 7, install the hotfix required as per the table above
6. Install the KMS CSVLK

a. Open an elevated command prompt
b. Run cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX using your KMS CSVLK
c. Wait for success message

7. Activate the KMS CSVLK

a. If system has external internet connectivity:

i. Open an elevated command prompt
ii. Run cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /ato
iii. Wait for success message

b. If system does not have external internet connectivity:

i. Phone activate with UI

1. Open an elevated command prompt
2. Run slui.exe 4 to open the Phone Activation wizard
3. Follow the prompts to complete

ii. Phone activate via command prompt

1. Open an elevated command prompt
2. Run cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /dti to obtain the installation ID
3. Call Microsoft’s Phone Activation using a phone number listed in %SystemRoot%System32\SPPUI\Phone.inf
4. Follow the prompts to obtain the confirmation ID
5. Run cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /atp to apply the confirmation ID
6. Wait for a success message

8. Run cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /dlv and verify that the License Status indicates that the KMS host is licensed.

The Windows 7 KMS host is now ready to begin accepting KMS activation requests. The host needs to meet the minimum threshold of twenty-five unique KMS (desktop) client requests before it will begin activating KMS (desktop) clients. Until the minimum threshold is met, KMS (desktop) clients attempting to activate against this host will report the following error:

When the threshold is met, all KMS (desktop) clients requesting activation (that are supported by the CSVLK installed) will begin to activate. Those KMS clients that previously erred out with 0xC004F038 will re-request activation (default interval is 120 minutes) and will be successfully activated without any user interaction. An activation request can be prompted on a KMS client immediately by running cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /ato in an elevated command prompt.

Scenario:

You want to build a KMS host on Windows 7, to activate Windows 7 and Windows 10 KMS clients. Here are the steps necessary to achieve your goal.

1. Determine what CSVLK is needed– You determine that CSVLK needed to activate both Windows 7 and Windows 10 is the Windows 10 CSVLK as per this TechNet article, under the “Plan for Key Management Services activation” section.
2. Obtain the CSVLK– Log onto your Volume License Service Center site and locate the Windows 10 KMS key listed. Note this for Step #5.
3. Build a Windows 7 system from Volume License media and patch– Using volume license media, build a system or utilize a system that is already built. Completely patch the system using Windows Update or whatever solution you use for applying updates/hotfixes.
4. Apply the required hotfix– Because Windows 7 was released before Windows 10, the system needs to become aware of the newer operating system. Applying the hotfix from KB Article 3079821 will accomplish this and enable your Windows 7 KMS host to activate Windows 10 KMS clients (along with Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 KMS clients).
5. Install the CSVLK– Open an elevated command prompt. Install the CSVLK on the KMS host by running the following command: cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /ipk
6. Activate the CSVLK– In the elevated command prompt, activate the CSVLK by running the following command: cscript.exe slmgr.vbs /ato
7. Verify– In the elevated command prompt, display the licensing information by running the following command: cscript.exe almgr.vbs /dlv
8. Phone activate if necessary – If you have issues with online activation from Step #6, you can open the phone activate by running the following command: slui.exe 0x4 and follow the prompts to activate your system. Once complete, repeat verification if necessary.

The KMS host is now ready to begin activating any Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 KMS clients. Here is a quick video to show the steps.

Note: Reminder, the minimum required threshold of twenty-five KMS client activation requests to this new host will need to be met before the KMS host begins activating as per Step #8 under “KMS Host Build Steps” above.

References:

• “Planning for Volume Activation” – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd996589.aspx
• “Determine Product Keys Needs” – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793411.aspx
• “Understanding KMS” – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793434.aspx
• “Deploying KMS Activation” – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793409.aspx
• “Reactivating Computers” – https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff793428.aspx

Links for other blogs in this series:

Coming Soon

Hardware Detection USB Drive
The wizard can also create USB drive using WinPE that will detect your existing Nano Server hardware configuration and report all the details in a log and on-screen. This hardware detection includes:

1. Network interface index– We use it to target IP address assignments. In the future, we will move to using MAC address targeting. Occasionally the network interface index will randomly change as Tron battles inner electrons in a race to see which networking card enumerates first.
2. Boot firmware type– The system creates different partitions depending on your firmware type. Most new servers are UEFI.
3. System board information– Validate that you are targeting the right server.
4. Disks and volumes– Choose wisely when selecting a disk partition to format.
5. Devices without a driver!– List devices that have no driver in the Server Core drivers package. Useful!

Hardware Detection Experience:

Accept the License Agreement (Nano Server requires customers have Software Assurance on the device)

Use the USB hardware detection process to see which devices need drivers.   Pro-tip:  Audio drivers are not necessary.

Emergency Management Services:
Get out your serial cable and an RS-232-accessible console. If you have no monitor and no networking is working, this might be your only way into the server.
I use putty.exe or my 1998 copy of hyper-terminal.

Now you have a bootable USB drive to deploy and you can optionally create a bootable ISO file using the same binaries:

System Center Operations Manager users may face the following common challenges  during the lifecycle of a Management Pack (MP):

1. Continually reviewing the ever-changing IT environments (dynamic) for new workloads or updates to old workloads to add or update the requisite MP
2. Understanding which MPs were not installed or imported while setting up monitoring of a workload so that the missing MPs can be installed or imported to monitor the workload completely (a situation wherein not all MPs required to monitor a workload completely were installed, resulting in partial monitoring of the workload)
3. Tracking availability of updates from the Online Catalog (OC) to an already installed MP, corresponding to a Workload
4. Searching the desired MP on Online Catalog Manually (a time-consuming process)

The new management pack Updates and Recommendations feature in System Center 2016 Operations Manager of provides an indispensable solution to these challenges by introducing significant automation in these often cumbersome activities. At the same time, it provides a single location to perform these interrelated activities for ease of use.

The workloads listed here are supported by this feature. Also, for this feature to work, agents should be installed on the servers (on which workloads are running), and the machine hosting the console must be connected to the internet. This feature along with the Data Driven Alert Management feature provides a holistic solution to the challenges faced during Lifecycle Management of a management pack.

Feature Description

This feature enables allocation of a status relevant to the state a workload is in, from the perspective of MP Lifecycle Management. Based on the same following scenarios are enabled from a single end point/ screen:

1. Discovering: Recognizes supported workloads (whether new or old) that aren’t being monitored but are a part of the respective management group
2. Resolving partial installations: Recognizes which MP files are missing to enable complete monitoring of a Workload
3. Updating: Recognizes and indicates availability of updates to various MPs that have been installed
4. Finding: The above mentioned scenarios are empowered by the ability of the feature to leverage Microsoft Management Pack Catalog Web Service and pin-point the updates and missing MPs, so that users can resolve inconsistencies within a few clicks

Users can delve deeper on the action items by using the more information option which will help them understand why a recommendation was displayed and why a particular workload has a specific status, view the corresponding DLC page and guide by using the respective option, and install/ import or update MPs with respect to a selected workload or all listed the workloads listed on the main screen by using Get MP or Get All MPs options respectively.

Also, for users that rely on non-English management packs, the enhanced Get MP option includes language selection settings, if available.

Note: The discovery logic runs every 24 hours by default, and can be modified to run at a higher frequency using appropriate Cmdlets in Operations Manager Shell. One can also use the script that can be found here.

The detailed steps to use this feature can be found under Updates and Recommendations section of the corresponding Technet documentation.

You can find the System Center 2016 GA here.

We request you to try out MP Updates and Recommendation feature in Operations Console. You can submit your feedback at our SCOM Feedback site.

We have received feedback from customers like you to have an HTML-based web console and not Silverlight-based. We are happy to announce that we have transitioned to an HTML-based web console, with the exception of the dashboards views. Dashboard views today are still Silverlight-based, but we will continue our investments to provide you HTML5-based dashboards in the future. With this change, you can now access System Center 2016 Operations Manager web console from a variety of browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox.

As part of this HTML web console implementation we have also made significant performance improvements in loading data, views, monitoring tree, and tasks.

You can find the System Center 2016 GA here.

We request you to try this feature. You can submit your feedback at our SCOM Feedback site.

Performance improvements have been made to State views and Diagram views in the System Center 2016 Operations Manager console to increase responsiveness. You will now see the following improvements:

1. State view is optimized to load efficiently
2. Diagram view is optimized to load efficiently

These improvements will be more visible in an environment where the load on the Operations Manager database is high.

Improving the responsiveness of the UI continues to be a top priority for us, and this update follows the improvements from the System Center 2016 TP5 release, details of which can be found here.

You can find the System Center 2016 GA here.

We request you to try this feature. You can submit your feedback at our SCOM Feedback site.

Today’s post was written by Ron Markezich, corporate vice president for Office 365.

In talking with customers every day, I see digital transformation taking place at organizations around the world—and it’s moving fast. As a cloud-based productivity suite that’s built to address the security and compliance needs of even the most highly regulated organizations, Office 365 is helping our customers transform the way they work. I am especially proud of the work we’ve done to bring Office 365 to U.S. Government customers because meeting their needs is a testament to the security and compliance capabilities of the Office 365 service.

We are continually investing to deliver a complete, compliant and secure Office 365 U.S. Government Cloud. Today, we announced the Office 365 U.S. Government Defense compliance service, which makes Security Requirements Guidelines (SRG) L5 and L4 controls available to U.S. Government defense departments and defense industry organizations holding Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). The service will help the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) continue its digital transformation and take advantage of cloud computing to deliver flexible, cost-efficient and secure productivity solutions. My colleague, Bob Davis, will provide more details about this service next week at the at the Microsoft Government Cloud Forum in Washington D.C., which I would highly recommend attending to learn more about how to accelerate the digital transformation of government organizations.

Microsoft delivers superior protection for its government-only infrastructure through four hardened U.S. datacenters operated by screened personnel. Access to the Office 365 U.S. Government Cloud service is controlled by a formal eligibility process, and data in the service is protected through multi-layered physical and software-based systems.

By adopting Office 365, DoD employees benefit from the familiar capabilities of Microsoft Office, Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business. Because Office 365 is a cloud-based solution, employees can work securely across devices, save and share information in the cloud and always benefit from the latest technology and innovation.

At Microsoft, we believe that not all clouds are created equal. Microsoft wants to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. To do that, we are working to ensure that Office 365 meets the security and compliance needs of every customer, while also providing a comprehensive productivity solution. The U.S. Government Defense compliance service is one more example of how we optimize our services to meet our customer requirements.

—Ron Markezich

The post How the Office 365 U.S. Government Cloud meets the regulatory and compliance needs of the Department of Defense appeared first on Office Blogs.

This post is authored by Xibin Gao, Data Scientist, Debraj GuhaThakurta, Senior Data Scientist, Gopi Kumar, Principal Program Manager, and Hang Zhang, Senior Data Science Manager, at Microsoft.

When presented with a new dataset, the first set of questions data scientists need to answer include:

• What does the data look like? What’s the schema?
  
• What’s the quality of the data? What’s the severity of missing data?
  
• How are individual variables distributed? Do I need to do variable transformation?
  
• How relevant is the data is to the machine learning task? How difficult is the machine learning task itself?
  
• Which variables are most relevant to the machine learning target?
  
• Is there any specific clustering pattern in the data?
  
• How will ML models on the data perform? Which variables are significant in the models?
  

Data scientists typically spend a significant amount of time writing code seeking answers to the above questions. Although datasets differ between projects, much of the code can be generalized into data science utilities that can be reused across projects, thus helping with productivity. Additionally, such utilities can help data scientists work on specific tasks in a project in a guided mode, ensuring consistency and completeness of the underlying tasks.

We are therefore excited to announce the public availability of two data science utilities which we believe will help boost your productivity:

1. Interactive Data Exploration, Analysis and Reporting (IDEAR), and
   
2. Automated Modeling and Reporting (AMAR).
   

These two utilities, which run in CRAN-R, can be accessed from this GitHub site. They were published as part of the Team Data Science Process (TDSP), which we launched at the Microsoft Machine Learning & Data Science Summit in Atlanta last month and discussed in our blog post last week.

IDEAR

IDEAR helps data scientists explore, visualize and analyze data, and helps provide insights into the data in an interactive manner. The interactivity is achieved by the Shiny library from R Studio. When you see visualizations or analysis results that could helpful you in data discussion with others, you can click a button to export the associated R scripts generating the visualization/results to a R log file. By clicking a “Generate Report” button in IDEAR, the R log file will be run to generate the data report automatically. You can directly use this report to have in-depth data discussions with teammates or with a data provider or your client, for instance.

Features of IDEAR we’d like to highlight include:

Automatic Variable Type Detection
This feature is helpful when a data scientist is handed a wide dataset without any confirmation of the variable types. IDEAR automatically detects variable types based on the number of unique values and the average number of observations for each unique value. Detection results are output to a YAML file to help you gradually reach the truth with respect to data types.

Variable Ranking and Target Leaker Identification
IDEAR ranks numerical and categorical independent variables based on the strength of their association with target variables. If some variables have significantly stronger associations with the target variable, you need to be alerted that they have the risk of actually being target leakers. This feature can also serve the purpose of evaluating the relevance of the data to the ML task.

The figure below shows the top ranked numerical variables and categorical variables to the target “IsIncomeOver50K” in the UCI adult income dataset.

Visualizing High-Dimensional Data

Visualization of high-dimensional data can often be a challenge. But such visualization can be very helpful in identifying the clustering pattern in the data. For ML tasks, building separate models for different clusters of observations can significantly improve the performance of the predictive models. Customer clustering and segmentation is a common practice in marketing and CRM tools.

IDEAR projects the high-dimensional numerical matrix into a 2-D or 3-D principal component space. In 3-D principal component spaces, you can change the view angle to visualize the data in different perspectives, which may be helpful in revealing clustering patterns.

AMAR

AMAR is a customizable tool to train machine learning models with hyper-parameter sweeping, compare the accuracy of those models, and look at variable importance. A parameter input file is used to specify which models to run, what part of the data is to be used for training and testing, the parameter ranges to sweep over, and the strategy for best parameter selection (e.g. cross-validation, bootstrapping etc.).

When this utility completes running, a standard HTML model report is output with the following information:

• A view of the top few rows of the dataset used for training.
  
• The training formula used to create the models.
  
• The accuracy of various models (AUC, RMSE, etc.), and a comparison of the same, i.e. if multiple models are trained.
  
• Variable importance ranking.

For example, when you run this utility on the same UCI adult income dataset, the three plots below show:

1. The comparison of ROC/AUC, sensitivity and specificity (evaluated on the held-out data of 3-fold cross-validation), viz. random forest, xgboost, and glm-net.
   
2. ROC curves, with AUC, on a test data.
   
3. Feature importance ranking.
   

   
   

   
   

With virtually no setup and coding effort, the modeling report can provide an initial assessment of the prediction accuracy of several commonly used machine learning approaches, as well as guidance for the subsequent steps of feature selection and modeling. You have the freedom to add more algorithms in AMAR and to change the grids of the hyper-parameter sweeping.

In our GitHub repository, we provide two sample datasets and YAML files to help you quickly run these utilities and try several useful features provided as part of the same.

We hope you will try these two tools as part of your next data science project, and also send us feedback and thoughts on the same.

Xibin, Debraj, Gopi & Hang

On the season premiere of Microsoft Mechanics, we showcase unified management across Linux and Windows Servers in hybrid cloud environments. This includes a hands-on look at how to deliver Azure management services on-demand with Microsoft Operations Management Suite (OMS), by Principal Program Manager Eamon O’Reilly.

Eamon demonstrates how to completely automate the deployment of infrastructure and application resources in the cloud and on-premises, and discusses how you can apply IT policies and orchestrate operational tasks using PowerShell and graphical runbooks. With PowerShell open sourced and available on Linux, you can now use OMS to consistently automate across Linux and Windows Server.

If you are an IT professional, you can get started today by creating a free Microsoft Operations Management Suite account. You can also learn more about Automation here and PowerShell here.

Today’s Microsoft Office 365 post was written by Tony Taylor, senior director of IT Services at Land O’Lakes.

When you consider that farmers will need to feed an estimated global population of close to 10 billion people by 2050, you begin to understand how big the agriculture business really is. To meet that future demand, we can’t rely on antiquated methods or keep one foot in the past.

At Land O’Lakes, we have embraced technology in every facet of our business. We are a farmer-owned business operating in 50 US states and 50 countries, with US $13 billion in net sales annually among our dairy, agriculture services and feed businesses. Our farmers keep those numbers growing while continuing to feed the world.

Because we operate on such a large scale, we need to build in efficiencies wherever we can. In fact, we developed an app that uses satellite imagery and collects data from combines and tractors to generate planting recommendations for a greater yield. Farmers can carry a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 or 4 with them in the field and see exactly where to add fertilizer or increase planting density to achieve the best results. We also have an international development arm of the company that promotes sustainable farming techniques in Africa, Mexico and other parts of the world.

To give our employees greater flexibility and free them from specific work spaces, we had to ensure that they could easily get to their information from anywhere. We recently adopted Microsoft Office 365 to gain the capabilities our highly mobile workforce needs to be effective. Everyone from farmers to salespeople can work untethered and still access the reports, product specs and colleagues that they need. And they’re thrilled that they can use all these new capabilities on every device—even their home computers—with the same user experience no matter what they’re using or where. In fact, within three months of making Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus available, we had over 4,000 employees taking advantage of it on more than 6,000 home and mobile devices.

Today, our employees use Office 365 both within Land O’Lakes and with our external partners. Groups use Microsoft SharePoint Online to share content among teams, with co-op members and with outside marketers. Our salespeople can trust that they always have the latest product sheets because that data is automatically updated and distributed through Microsoft OneDrive for Business. And whether they’re at our headquarters, out on a farm or anywhere in between, colleagues connect with each other through instant message and presence notification using Skype for Business Online, which we also use for a range of meetings, interviews and even presentations to universities.

Now that we’ve seen the power of Office 365, we’re eager to dive in even deeper, which is why we’ve purchased the new premium enterprise functionality. Now, our international team can simply say, “Skype me,” when they hold Skype Meetings for real-time video meetings or share presentations. And we use Power BI to give our end users the ability to drive real-time analytics on their own, without IT involvement. We’re also looking at MyAnalytics to see who is consuming which data (and who isn’t), so that we can see how to shape our organization, train our workforce and optimize our employees’ potential.

At Land O’Lakes, we believe that our investment in technology equates to an investment in our employees’ success. By empowering our workforce with Office 365 and the most up-to-date technologies, we’ll attract and retain top talent who will be critical in helping us push the envelope and make the next big breakthroughs in feeding the world.

—Tony Taylor

Read the case study to better understand how Land O’Lakes empowers their workforce.

The post Land O’Lakes: advancing agriculture for a new generation appeared first on Office Blogs.

This month, the OneNote team focused on updating our Android app to launch new features and bring back some fan favorites. We are also introducing new ways to embed content types and improving usability on shared devices.

New to the OneNote for Android app

Password protected sections—Now you can open sections that have been password protected on other devices, letting you access sensitive information on the go. We’re happy to make this top user request available.

Multi-window support—OneNote works side-by-side with other Android apps that have multi-window support. For example, now you can take notes on a PowerPoint deck you’re reading or while doing research on the web.

Available again in the Android app

Audio recording—OneNote works the way you want, letting you take notes by typing, inking, clipping from the web and now by recording audio. A recording is a natural way to capture notes and ideas on the go, giving you the ability to easily record a lecture or practice your accent as you learn a new language.

Insert embedded files—Easily insert and open any Office file or PDF that you saved into OneNote to review your docs on the go.

Coming soon to OneNote for Android app

Look for the ability to edit and personalize your section tabs directly in the Android app and easily go back and undo changes to your notes to make sure your ideas are written just the way you want them.

Embed content into OneNote

We’ve added the ability to embed new types of content right onto the OneNote canvas. In addition to YouTube and Vimeo, you can now embed Office 365 Videos and Repli.it. With Repli.it, you can show executable code snippets right in OneNote to teach inline with your notes and lesson plans. To learn more about OneNote and Repli.it, check out our blog last month.

In addition to the new content types, we have added single sign-on (SSO) authentication for embedded Office files. Once you sign in to view one embedded document, you automatically will be signed in to view the rest.

Use shared Windows devices more effectively in the classroom

Shared cart PC for OneNote is a new OneNote for Windows 10 feature to benefit schools that share devices among students and still want to provide a personalized experience for each of them. Before class begins, teachers can assign any student any shared Windows 10 PC. When students sign in to the shared PC, new OneNote features help them use their personalized OneNote across multiple shared PCs by doing the following:

• Office 365 sign-in credentials roam with students when they sign in to OneNote for Windows 10.
• New syncing indicator makes it easier to manage content saving to the cloud, including attachments, so students never lose work when they leave their shared PC.

Thanks for checking out what’s new with OneNote this month. We always want to hear your feedback, so make comments below or follow these links.

• Get OneNote: Mac | iOS | Android | Windows
• Suggestions: OneNote UserVoice
• Help: Answers.Microsoft.com

Users can update OneNote to use these features.

—Scott Shapiro, product marketing manager for the OneNote team

The post OneNote October roundup appeared first on Office Blogs.

This post is authored by Shahrokh Mortazavi, Team Lead, Data Science Tools.

We’re delighted to announce the availability of RTVS 0.5. Key updates in this release include:

• Integrated support for SQL and SQL Stored Procedures.
  
• Multiple plot windows, plot history with plot thumbnails for navigation.
  
• General improvements and bug fixes.
  

SQL Integration

SQL databases are a major source of data for data scientists. RTVS makes it easier to work with SQL data by integrating with the excellent support for SQL Server that is available to Visual Studio users. You can add and manage your database connections, write SQL queries, retrieve data into data frames and analyze within RTVS. Here’s a quick overview:

SQL Server R Stored Procedures 

SQL Server 2016 supports running embedded R code on the SQL machine. The R code that runs in a Stored Procedure can retrieve, analyze and create data that SQL can perform further operations on. This involves combining SQL and R into a single query which can be somewhat cumbersome. Here’s where RTVS comes to the rescue! The following video shows you how to add a Stored Procedure to your project, write and test your SQL and R, and publish the finished Procedure to your database:

Multiple Plots and Thumbnails for Navigation

Plots are central to the Data Science experience. Currently R IDEs only allow one active plot at a time and navigation is limited to Previous and Next buttons (i.e., sequential). This can become tedious if you have many plots to deal with. With RTVS 0.5 you can:

• Create multiple simultaneous plots (especially great if you have multiple monitors!)
  
• Create multiple plot devices and move/copy plots between them.
  
• View thumbnails of your plots for quick navigation (random access to plots).
  

Here’s a quick video overview of the plotting improvements:

Installation and Download

• If you are new to the Visual Studio ecosystem, please see http://microsoft.github.io/RTVS-docs/installation.html
  
• If you already have Visual Studio 2015 installed, you can download RTVS 0.5 from: https://aka.ms/rtvs-current
  
• For further documentation and info, please see: http://microsoft.github.io/RTVS-docs/
  

Shahrokh
@RT4VS

Lead highly interactive remote meetings using voice, video and screen sharing.

An online immersion session is not your typical online event. Each 90-minute interactive session starts with an online roundtable discussing your business challenges and then launches you into a live environment in the cloud. A skilled facilitator will guide you through simulated business scenarios that are customized to your interests.

We will send you a link to connect your own device to a remote desktop loaded with our latest and greatest technology, so you can experience first-hand how Microsoft tools can solve your biggest challenges in a collaborative, fun environment.

Online immersion sessions help you discover how to:

• Keep information secure while being productive—Make it easier to work securely and maintain compliance without inhibiting your workflow.
• Capture, review and share notes from anywhere—Boost your team’s productivity by sharing documents and collaborating in real time.
• Use social tools to find experts and answers—Break down barriers between departments to share knowledge quickly.
• Quickly visualize and analyze complex data—Zero in on the data and insights you need without having to involve a BI expert.
• Co-author and share content quickly—Access and edit documents even while others are editing and reviewing them—all at the same time.

Expect to leave the session with enough time-saving skills to more than offset your time investment within a few short days.

Each session is only open to 20 participants. Reserve your seat now and learn how you can be more productive anywhere, anytime with Office 365.

Sessions are held at 10 a.m. PT and 12 p.m. PT every Wednesday. Register now!

The post Engage virtually using Office 2016 and Windows 10 appeared first on Office Blogs.

Author: Meghan Stewart | Support Escalation Engineer

Occasionally you may find that you want to start over in WSUS with a fresh database (SUSDB). There can be any number of reasons for this, but typically I see people doing this if their SUSDB is rather old, has a ton of unneeded updates in it, and maintenance has not been done on the SUSDB in years. In those cases you can find that a rebuild may be faster and easier than fixing the problematic SUSDB. Typically speaking, I see people wanting to recreate the just the content dir if they accidentally unchecked the “download update files to this server only when updates are approved” and ended up with a hard drive full of unneeded files. Whatever the reason, here are the steps for recreating the SUSDB and the WSUS Content folder for a Windows Server 2012 based WSUS computer:

1. Open PowerShell as admin.

2. Stop the WSUS service and IIS Service with the following command:

stop-service WSUSService, W3SVC

Verify that both are stopped by running get-service WSUSService, W3SVC

It should look something like this:

3. Open SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the instance for SUSDB.

How you connect via SQL Server Management Studio is different depending on whether you installed SUSDB on Windows Internal Database (WID) or SQL Server. This was specified when you installed SUSDB. If you are not sure which you used, you can check a registry key on the WSUS server located at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Update Services\Server\Setup to verify. Take a screenshot/registry export of this and look for the SQLServerName value. If you see just a server name or server\instance, you are using SQL server. If you see something that has the string ##SSEE or ##WID in it, you installed on Windows Internal Database, as demonstrated below:

Note that if you see ##SSEE, this blog post is not applicable to you.

If you installed SUSDB on Windows Internal Database

If you installed SUSDB on Windows Internal Database (WID), you will need SQL Management Studio Express installed in order to remove the database. If you’re not sure which version of SQL Server Management Studio Express to install, here’s an easy way to figure that out:

For Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2, go to C:\Windows\WID\Log and find the error log that has the version number you’re using. Lookup the version number here:

321185 – How to determine the version, edition and update level of SQL Server and its components (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/321185)

This will tell you what Service Pack level it is running. Include the SP level when searching the Microsoft Download Center for SQL Management Studio Express as sometimes it does matter.

Once SQL Management Studio Express is installed, launch it and it will prompt you to enter the server name to connect to. If your OS is Windows Server 2012, use \\.\pipe\MICROSOFT##WID\tsql\query. Note that if you are not running Windows Server 2012 or 2012 R2, this blog post is not appropriate to use.

Also note that for WID, you may want to run SQL Server Management Studio Express as administrator if you were not the person who installed WSUS.

If you did not install SUSDB on WID

If you did not install SUSDB on WID, simply type in the server name (\instance if needed):

4. Backup the existing SUSB, just in case you need it later. Better safe than sorry

Open SQL –> expand databases –> right-click SUSDB, then select “New Query”.

Paste in the following, changing the directories to the directory of your choosing.

backup database [susdb] to disk =’D:\SQL\Backup\susdb.bak’ with copy_only

5. Open SQL –> expand databases-> right-click SUSDB –> Delete. Be sure that you select “Close existing connections” at the bottom of the wizard.

Optionally, you can also delete the backups (delete is the default).

6. Delete or rename the content directory, then recreate it. Please note that this will not delete/rename if the two services mentioned above are still running.

You can find the directory directory for the content folder by looking in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Update Services\Server\Setup\ContentDIr *

Rename the directory by running REN WSUS WSUS_old, or delete it by running DEL WSUS, then confirm All with “A”:

Recreate the directory by running MKDIR WSUS. Note that the default permissions will be reapplied when you run the post install.

If you are not removing the SUSDB, but are removing the content and need to re-download files for updates you have already approved, do the following to initiate the download:

a. CD “C:\Program Files\Update Services\Tools”

b. Run .\WsusUtil.exe reset

7. Start the services:

Start-service WSUSService, W3SVC

Verify that both are started by running get-service WSUSService, W3SVC

8. Reinstall the SUSDB by running the post install. The command varies depending on if you run WIDs or not.

First, CD to Program Files\Update Services\Tools.

For Full SQL (or non WIDS), run the following:

.\Wsusutil.exe postinstall SQL_INSTANCE_NAME=”Server\Instance” CONTENT_DIR=”:\WSUS”

For WIDS, run this:

.\Wsusutil.exe postinstall CONTENT_DIR=”:\WSUS”

General Post install notes

You need the “.\ “ in front of wsusutil.exe or it will not execute in PowerShell. For the default SQL instance, just type in the server name. You do need the quotes in the above command. This will launch the post install which installs the SUSDB, recreates the website on port 8530 (default) and repoints everything to the ContentDir. The post install command will create a log in the \AppData\Local\Temp directory which will be in the form of tmpXXX.tmp. This log may be 0kb for a little while. It will also spawn another log called WsusUtilUseCustomWebSite.log. The website log will disappear if all goes well with the website install, then the tmpXXX.log will be written to at that point. The tmp log will show you the tables, stored procedures, views, et cetera being created/verified in the SUSDB.

After doing this, when you first launch the WSUS console, it will bring up the WSUS Configuration Wizard. You can run through this wizard if you would like and select your options such as products, upstream server and proxy. If you are using SSL, please note that additional configuration is required.

Hopefully you’ll never be faced with having to recreate your SUSDB. If you do, hopefully this will help make that process go as smoothly as possible.

Meghan Stewart, Support Escalation Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Cloud Group

To read last week’s post, see The week in .NET – On .NET on Net Standard 2.0 – Nancy – Satellite Reign.

On .NET

We didn’t have a show last week, but we’re back this week with Rowan Miller to chat about Entity Framework Core 1.1 and .NET. The show is on Thursdays and begins at 10AM Pacific Time on Channel 9. We’ll take questions on Gitter, on the dotnet/home channel and on Twitter. Please use the #onnet tag. It’s OK to start sending us questions in advance if you can’t do it live during the show.

Package of the week: Bond

Bond is a battle-tested binary serialization format and library, similar to Google’s Protocol Buffer. Bond works on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and supports C++, C#, and Python.

To work with Bond, you start by defining your schema using an IDL-like specification.

Then, you codegen a C# library for the schema:

You may now use the generated library in your C# code to instantiate objects of the types defined, as well as serialize and deserialize them:

Bond also offers deep cloning and comparison for objects of compatible types defined from Bond specifications.

Game of the Week: The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed

The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed is a four part episodic fantasy adventure game designed for virtual reality. Meet mysterious and bizarre characters while you follow clues in search for your missing sister, Elsie. The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed features full-room scale VR with interactions that will have you sitting, standing, crouching and crawling around.

The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed was created by Cloudhead Games using Unity and C#. It is available for the HTC Vive on Steam and will be available in December on Oculus Home for the Oculus Touch.

Conference of the week: .NET DeveloperDays October 20-21 in Warsaw

.NET DeveloperDays is the biggest event in Central and Eastern Europe dedicated exclusively to application development on the .NET platform. It is designed for architects, developers, testers and project managers using .NET in their work and to those who want to improve their knowledge and skills in this field. The conference content is 100% English, making it easy for the international audience to attend. The speaker lineup includes Jon Skeet, Dino Esposito, and Ted Neward.

.NET

• .NET Framework Monthly Rollups Explained and .NET Framework Monthly Rollup: October 2016 by Stacey Haffner.
• Learning .NET Core by example by Jon Hilton.
• Parallel Test Execution by Pratap Lakshman.
• Porting Apache Avro into .NET Core by Welly Tambunan.
• Timing the time it takes to parse time part 1 and part 2 by Ayende Rahien.
• Microsoft IIS Administration Preview.
• Deal with time dependencies in Tests by Carlos Mendible.
• Metric.NET: dealing with measurement units by Ivan Milutinović.
• Stuntman now works with .NET Core.
• MediatR Pipeline Examples by Jimmy Bogard.
• Using Core class library from .NET 4.6 project by Hrvoje Hudoletnjak.
• Calling UWP APIs from a Desktop Application by Mike Taulty.

ASP.NET

• Exploring ASP.NET Core with Docker in both Linux and Windows Containers by Scott Hanselman.
• Custom authorization policies and requirements in ASP.NET Core by Andrew Lock.
• Debugging into ASP.NET Core Source by Steve Gordon.
• Localization & Routing in ASP.NET Core 1.0 by Hisham Bin Ateya.
• ASP.NET Core and the Enterprise: Part 1 Frameworks by K. Scott Allen.

F#

• Using F# on Azure by Sylvan Clebsch.
• Getting Started with F# in Visual Studio Code with Ionide by Phillip Carter.
• Using F# with .NET Core by Ody Mbegbu.
• ASP.NET Identity in an F# Web Application, Part One by Ernest Pazera.
• Prefer Records of Functions to Interfaces by Matthew Doig.

Check out F# Weekly for more great content from the F# community.

Xamarin

• Xamarin Preview: Xamarin Profiler 0.38.0 by Adrian Murphy.
• Xamarin Dev Days Continue to Roll Out! by Jayme Singleton.
• Mobile Leaders Podcast | Enterprise Mobility Trends with Maribel Lopez by Anusha Sethuraman.
• Live Webinar | Xamarin University Presents: Introduction to Xamarin with Visual Studio by Courtney Witmer.
• Understanding Android’s Doze Functionality and The Xamarin Show 6: User Interface Automation with Charles Wang by James Montemagno.
• Bringing Platform-Specific Functionality to Xamarin.Forms Apps by Pierce Boggan.
• Designing Card-Based User Interfaces by Nick Babich.
• Creating A Splash Screen In Xamarin Forms and Misuses Of MessagingCenter by Adam Pedley.
• ReactiveUI Goodies – Search and ReactiveUI Goodies – ReactiveList by Jan Hannemann.
• Semantic Versioning of Xamarin Applications by Geoffrey Huntley.
• Templates and Extensions for Xamarin & Mono by Terrence Dorsey.

Azure

• Simpler Azure Management Libraries for .NET by Asir Selvasingh.
• Hosting .NET Core Services on Service Fabric by Vaijanath Angadihiremath.
• Running Worker Roles with Docker in .NET Core by Pepijn Schoen.
• ASP.NET Core 1.0 – Configure Application Insights by Joao Sousa.
• App Service Mobile Apps .NET Client SDK 3.0.1 release by Mimi Xu.
• Sending a Regular SMS with Azure Functions and Twilio by Jason Roberts.

Games

• Curated #UnityTips No. 17 by DevDog October 2016 by DevDog.
• Unity 5 Tutorial: How to debug raycasts (video) by Gamad.
• Using InputFields with C# Unity 5.4 (video) by Learn To Be Indie.

And this is it for this week!

Contribute to the week in .NET

As always, this weekly post couldn’t exist without community contributions, and I’d like to thank all those who sent links and tips. The F# section is provided by Phillip Carter, the gaming section by Stacey Haffner, and the Xamarin section by Dan Rigby.

You can participate too. Did you write a great blog post, or just read one? Do you want everyone to know about an amazing new contribution or a useful library? Did you make or play a great game built on .NET?
We’d love to hear from you, and feature your contributions on future posts:

• Send an email to beleroy at Microsoft,
• comment on this gist
• Leave us a pointer in the comments section below.
• Send Stacey (@yecats131) tips on Twitter about .NET games.

This week’s post (and future posts) also contains news I first read on The ASP.NET Community Standup, on Weekly Xamarin, on F# weekly, and on Chris Alcock’s The Morning Brew.

Dear Customers,

The 9th cumulative update release for SQL Server 2014 SP1 is now available for download at the Microsoft Downloads site. Please note that registration is no longer required to download Cumulative updates.

To learn more about the release or servicing model, please visit:

• CU#9 KB Article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3186964
• Understanding Incremental Servicing Model for SQL Server
• Microsoft® SQL Server® 2014 SP1 Latest Cumulative Update: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=51186
• Update Center for Microsoft SQL Server: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sqlserver/ff803383.aspx

Dear Customers,

The 2nd cumulative update release for SQL Server 2014 SP2 is now available for download at the Microsoft Downloads site. Please note that registration is no longer required to download Cumulative updates.

To learn more about the release or servicing model, please visit:

• CU#2 KB Article: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3188778
• Understanding Incremental Servicing Model for SQL Server
• Microsoft® SQL Server® 2014 SP2 Latest Cumulative Update: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53592
• Update Center for Microsoft SQL Server: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sqlserver/ff803383.aspx