In the last post, we introduced you to a video series from Bob Tabor that teaches the fundamentals of C#. In this post, you’ll learn how to put those new (or re-sharpened) C# skills to use as we explore UWP (Universal Windows Platform) development in the Windows 10 Development for Absolute Beginners course from Bob Tabor. With little or no prior experience with XAML (pronounced “Zammal”), you’ll learn how to use XAML and C# to create amazing Windows 10 UWP applications, get those apps ready for publishing and see them run on UWP devices ranging from Xbox One and PC, to mobile and even Raspberry Pi.

Even if you’re an experienced UWP developer, just like in the last post, you may find that there are areas you’d like to brush up on. You can jump to any of the course’s 80 videos and also explore the companion sample code on GitHub.

Exploring the Course

The Ultimate Beginner Series course has two conceptual parts. In the first half, Bob Tabor explains the concepts, patterns and features of a UWP application. In the second half, you will build out four fleshed-out demo applications. From “File > New” to submitting your app to the Windows Store, these samples will get you ready to build and publish your first (or next) app!

First Half

Let’s take a high-level look at just some of the topics you’ll see in the front half of the course (to see the full list visit the course site).

• Videos 1– 7: Introduction to both XAML and what UWP (Universal Windows Application) is
• Videos 8– 18: Learn how to use different XAML Layouts
• Videos 19– 24: App Navigation
• Videos 28– 36: XAML Styling
• Videos 37– 39: VisualStateManager and AdaptiveTriggers
• Videos 40– 42: DataBinding, ObservableCollections and DataTemplates

There’s a lot there and there is even more to see, including lesson cheat-sheets, challenges and other useful material for learning and future reference.

Second Half

Now, let’s take a look at the four big samples that you’ll build as you move into the second part of the course. These videos will bring you through all the aspects of building, testing and publishing a UWP app.

• SoundBoard (videos 49– 56)
  • Page Layout, creating models and data binding
  • Playing media with MediaElement
  • Implementing drag and drop
  • Working with app assets (iconography) and submitting to the Windows Store
• Weather (videos 57– 62)
  • Working with a weather API
  • Using GPS and location APIs
  • Testing location in a Windows 10 Mobile emulator
  • Updating live tiles
• Album Cover Match Game (videos 63–70)
  • Access and use the device’s folder and file system
  • Layout, databinding and game setup/logic
  • Handling user input and persisting progress
  • Monetization with ads and In App Purchase
• Hero Explorer (videos 71–79)
  • Accessing a Web API
  • Databinding the object graph from the Web API results
  • Displaying that data in an adaptive layout

Make it through everything? Congrats, you are now ready to begin (or continue) your journey into the world of Windows 10 UWP development. This is not the end of great resources, there are many more available to you as you continue on your journey as a UWP developer (see resources section below). We look forward to seeing the wonderful UWP creations you bring to the Windows Store in 2017!

Resources

• Official Microsoft GitHub UWP examples (currently 237 topic-specific demos)
• UWP documentation
• UWP app design documentation

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.

The post New Year, New Dev: Developing your idea into a UWP app appeared first on Building Apps for Windows.

FAST FACT: OMS Security is adding support for Symantec Endpoint Protection and Trend Micro Deep Security to its Antimalware assessment solution. This service update adds support for assessing whether servers are protected by anti-malware solutions from these vendors and whether these solutions are operational. The OMS Antimalware dashboard now reflects this new feature.

========================================

Microsoft Operations Management Security is improving its support for antimalware assessment by adding support for antimalware partner solutions. This service update adds support for detecting when monitored servers are protected by Symantec Endpoint Protection or Trend Micro Deep Security agents. The release adds support for detecting all supported Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.x and 14.x versions and all supported Trend Micro Deep Security version 9.6.

In addition to detecting when these partner solutions are installed, an additional assessment is also done to determine whether protection by these agents is operational. Specifically, OMS Security will test to see if the antimalware agents from these vendors on the monitored servers are:

• Enabled
• Running scans at regular intervals
• Using signatures no older than seven days

This enables you to plan for and ensure that the servers in your infrastructure are adequately protected. The Antimalware dashboard in Log Analytics has been updated to report on this assessment for partner antimalware solutions.

The Antimalware dashboard categorizes information about the malware assessment into four tiles:

• Threat Status
• Detected Threats
• Protection Status
• Type of Protection

Monitored servers that are protected by these third-party antimalware solutions are displayed in the Type of Protection tile. The solution workspace that’s displayed here has three servers with Symantec Endpoint Protection and one with Trend Micro Deep Security.

The Protection Status tile in the malware assessment will reflect whether the protection of these servers is operational. For instance, if for any reason the Antimalware agent is disabled or if the server has not been scanned for more than seven days, the tile will report that the server is missing real-time protection as shown in the following screenshot:

When we drill down, we can see that there are servers with No real time protection.

For example, in the figure below you can see that the server has the Trend Micro Deep Security agent installed, but real-time protection is not available.

This may because an agent is installed but not configured or because the antimalware module was disabled.

Here you can see a server where the Symantec Endpoint Protection agent is disabled.

OMS Security also checks to see if an antimalware scan hasn’t been done recently. For example, in the following figure, you can see that the server shows Latest scan older than 7 days.

Also, OMS Security will check to see if antimalware signatures might be out-of-date. In the following figure, you can see that the server shows Signatures out of date and Signature older than 7 days.

In all these scenarios, you can take appropriate action to investigate and fix the problems.

Note that threat assessment is not a part of this service update. Threat assessment support for Symantec Endpoint Protection and Trend Micro Deep Security will appear in a future service update. At that time the Antimalware dashboard will display this information in the Threats Status and the Detected Threats tiles.

Tom Shinder
Program Manager,
Azure Security Engineering

The main release branch of the Bing Maps Version 8 web control (V8) has been in a code freeze over the last two months for the holiday season. Over this time the Bing Maps team focused primarily on bug fixes and performance improvements in Bing Maps V8. Here are some of the more notable new features added in this release.

Cardinal Splines

The Spatial Math module has a new function that calculates a cardinal spline that passes through a specified array of locations.

Try it now

Multiple Map Support

Some applications will sometimes want to display two or more maps on a single page. With this release, the Bing Maps V8 web control now supports loading multiple map instances on a single page.

Route Path Locations

When you calculate a route using the directions manager, you can now easily get an array of locations that make up the route path. This is useful if you want to create a custom styled route line on the map, or if you want to perform route-based calculations such as search for data along or near a route. Combine this with the Bing Maps REST elevation service and easily generate route elevation profiles. This is documented as part of the Route response object here.

In Summary

A complete list of new features added in this release can be found on the What’s New page in the documentation on MSDN. We have many other features and functionalities on the road map for Bing Maps V8. If you have any questions or feedback about V8, please let us know on the Bing Maps forums or visit the Bing Maps website to learn more about our V8 web control features.

- Bing Maps Team

Related Posts

• TypeScript Definitions for Bing Maps V8 Released on GitHub
• Bing Maps V8 SDK September 2016 Update
• Bing Maps V8 August 2016 Update
• Bing Maps V8 July 2016 Update

In the Season 3 finale of Lunch Break,” these deleted scenes have me on the road with with Paul Fipps (CIO & EVP,Under Armour), Jim Fowler, (CIO,General Electric), and Mark Russinovich (CTO, Microsoft Azure), and Brad Strock (CIO, PayPal).

Mark and I talk about what job to give Doc. Brown if youre trying to staff a promising new startup, and Jim takes us behind the scenes of GEs decision to make a big pivot into digital. We also talk about the cultural changes needed to make failure a learning opportunity rather than the end of the world, and Paul shares some really valuable ideas about the changing nature of the CIO role.

.

As always:

• To learn more about how top CIOs stay secure + productive, check out this new report.
• To learn more about Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/ems

Thanks for watching I cant wait until Season 4!

You can subscribe to these videoshere, or watch past episodes here:www aka.ms/LunchBreak.

Today’s post was written byParri Munsell, managing director of Microsoft Office Partner Marketing.

Microsoft FastTrack is our customer success service designed to help organizations realize business value faster with Office 365. As we start 2017, FastTrack is growing faster than ever with the help of Microsoft certified partners. Collaborative efforts between FastTrack and partners are now helping more than 4,000 new customers every month drive usage and adoption.

We have found that customers who actively engage with both FastTrack and a Microsoft certified partner are the most successful in deploying Office 365 quickly, and in extracting the most value from their software investments. FastTrack can assist customers with data migration, provisioning services and mapping Office 365 capabilities to business goals. Microsoft partners complement the FastTrack experience with full on-site support, often providing additional value-added services such as change management consulting, local environment analysis, mitigation of any issues prior to the cloud transition, and long-term engagement with business stakeholders to drive value through the entire organization.

NGA Human Resources is just one customer example of a how a company can leverage the expertise of both their local partner and the FastTrack team to maximize their success. “We got stellar support from the Microsoft FastTrack team throughout a rush deployment where we migrated 8,000 employees and huge amounts of data [to Office 365], including data from Google Docs, to avoid an expensive contract renewal with Google,” says chief information officer Russell Sheldon.Plus, the effective change management policies suggested by Microsoft partner Content and Code expedited adoption of the Office 365 services, ushering in a new era of individual productivity that adds up to a happier, more efficient global workforce. The result is that NGA HR is innovating new ideas to drive business and respond faster to customers—on a global scale.

New Welcome to FastTrack guide

To help customers understand the benefits associated with leveraging FastTrack with the help of partners, we are introducing the Welcome to FastTrack guide, which outlines each stage of a customer’s journey, from initial envisioning of the project through driving value throughout the organization. We’re seeing some innovative partners embedding FastTrack into their offerings to ensure that their customers get the most out of their solution in the fastest possible time.

Our ongoing investment in customer success

As customers make the digital transformation to the cloud, we offer a wide variety of services and digital resources. More than 800 FastTrack engineers are available to work with customers and their certified partners, providing expert advice and remote guidance. When additional expertise is needed, Microsoft collaborates with partners to provide those services. To date, the Office 365 Adoption Offer has made available to customers almost $50 million in partner benefits, enabling thousands of organizations to receive local support from a certified partner of their choice. This offer continues to be available for customers who purchased Office 365 between February 1, 2016 and June 30, 2016.

We’re excited to see customer success growing on a global scale because of the collaboration between FastTrack and our partners.

Customers can visit FastTrack.microsoft.com to learn more about FastTrack resources or go to the Microsoft Partner Center to find a Microsoft partner to help them with migrations to the Microsoft Cloud.

Get information about current FastTrack offers and eligibility requirements—and start building a collaborative relationship with Microsoft FastTrack and the certified partner of your choice today.

The post Microsoft FastTrack now reaches thousands of customers globally every month with the help of Microsoft partners appeared first on Office Blogs.

Around the world teamwork is on the rise. Research suggests employees now work on nearly double the number of teams than they did just five years ago. This means more than ever people are reliant on their peers to help get things done. But a “one size fits all” approach does not work when it comes to group collaboration—different tools appeal to different groups and address unique needs.

This is not your typical online event

Each 90-minute session starts with an online business roundtable discussing your biggest business challenges with a trained facilitator and then transitions into a live environment in the cloud. You will receive 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.

U.S. customers: Register here.
Outside the U.S.?Register here.

Why should I attend?

During this interactive online session, you will explore:

• How Microsoft Teams, the newest collaboration tool:
  • Keeps everyone engaged with threaded persistent chat.
  • Creates a hub for teamwork that works together with your other Office 365 apps.
  • Builds customized options for each team with channels, connectors, tabs and bots.
  • Adds your personality to your team with emojis, GIFs and stickers.

• How to keep information secure while being productive—Make it easier to work securely and maintain compliance without inhibiting your workflow.

• How to quickly visualize and analyze complex data—Zero in on the data and insights you need without having to involve a BI expert.

• How to co-author and share content quickly—Access and edit documents even while others are editing and reviewing them all at the same time.

• How to get immediate productivity gains—Most attendees leave with enough time-saving skills that time invested to attend a Customer Immersion Experience more than pays for itself in a few short days.

Space is limited. Each is session is only open to 12 participants. Reserve your seat now.

The post More than ever, people are reliant on their peers to help get things done appeared first on Office Blogs.

This means customers subscribed to Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 as well as Secure Productive Enterprise E3 and E5, can now upgrade their Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs and devices to Windows 10 without the need to purchase separate upgrade licenses.

This is an important benefit addition to Windows cloud subscriptions in CSP as it enables customers who have yet to purchase a new Windows 10 device, or who missed out on the free upgrade to Windows 10 campaign, to take advantage of enterprise-grade security, managed by a trusted partner, for the price of coffee and a donut.

In order to take advantage of this new upgrade benefit, tenant admins for customers with Windows cloud subscriptions can log in to the Office 365 Admin center http://portal.office.com with their Azure Active Directory admin credentials and see options to begin the upgrade on the device they are currently using, share the download link with others in their organization, create installation media or troubleshoot installation.

The Windows 10 upgrade licenses issued as part of this process are perpetual and associated with the device. This means the license will not expire or be revoked if the customer chooses to end their Windows cloud subscription in the CSP program.

New Windows 10 Upgrade benefits can be accessed by tenant admins in the Office 365 Admin center (above)

The new upgrade benefits are rolling out now and tenant admins with Windows subscriptions in CSP should start to see Windows 10 upgrade options and links in their Office 365 Admin center over the next 48 hours.

We hope these new Windows 10 upgrade benefits will better enable businesses of any size – including those with PCs and devices still on Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 – to work with a trusted partner to upgrade to enterprise-grade security and management with flexible, small business pricing from just $7 per user, per month.

Microsoft partners can learn more about Windows cloud subscriptions in CSP via the following resources:

• Microsoft Partner Network: http://aka.ms/wincsp
• Drumbeat: http://drumbeat.windows.com
• CORE CSP: http://corecsp.com

The post New Windows 10 upgrade benefits for Windows Cloud Subscriptions in CSP appeared first on Windows For Your Business.

Image processing, and in particular image resizing, is a common requirement for web applications. As such, I wanted to paint a panorama of the options that exist for .NET Core to process images. For each option, I’ll give a code sample for image resizing, and I’ll outline interesting features. I’ll conclude with a comparison of the performance of the libraries, in terms of speed, size, and quality of the output.

CoreCompat.System.Drawing

If you have existing code relying on System.Drawing, using this library is clearly your fastest path to .NET Core and cross-platform bliss: the performance and quality are fine, and the API is exactly the same. The built-in System.Drawing APIs are the easiest way to process images with .NET Framework, but they rely on the GDI+ features from Windows, which are not included in .NET Core, and are a client technology that was never designed for multi-threaded server environments. There are locking issues that may make this solution unsuitable for your applications.

CoreCompat.System.Drawing is a .NET Core port of the Mono implementation of System.Drawing. Like System.Drawing in .NET Framework and in Mono, CoreCompat.System.Drawing also relies on GDI+ on Windows. Caution is therefore advised, for the same reasons.

Also be careful when using the library cross-platform, to include the runtime.osx.10.10-x64.CoreCompat.System.Drawing and / or runtime.linux-x64.CoreCompat.System.Drawing packages.

• Nuget: CoreCompat.System.Drawing, runtime.osx.10.10-x64.CoreCompat.System.Drawing, and runtime.linux-x64.CoreCompat.System.Drawing
• GitHub: CoreCompat/CoreCompat

ImageSharp

ImageSharp is a brand new, pure managed code, and cross-platform image processing library. Its performance is not as good as that of libraries relying on native OS-specific dependencies, but it remains very reasonable. Its only dependency is .NET itself, which makes it extremely portable: there is no additional package to install, just reference ImageSharp itself, and you’re done.

If you decide to use ImageSharp, don’t include the package that shows on NuGet: that’s going to be an empty placeholder until the first official release of ImageSharp ships. For the moment, you need to get a nightly build from a MyGet feed. This can be done by adding the following NuGet.config to the root directory of the project:

Resizing an image with ImageSharp is very simple.

For a new codebase, the library is surprisingly complete. It includes all the filters you’d expect to treat images, and even includes very comprehensive support for reading and writing EXIF tags (that code is shared with Magick.NET):

Note that the latest builds of ImageSharp are more modular than they used to, and if you’re going to use image formats such as Jpeg, or image processing capabilities such as Resize, you need to import additional packages in addition to the core ImageSharp package (respectively ImageSharp.Processing and ImageSharp.Formats.Jpeg).

• MyGet: ImageSharp
• GitHub: JimBobSquarePants/ImageSharp

Magick.NET

Magick.NET is the .NET wrapper for the popular ImageMagick library. ImageMagick is an open-source, cross-platform library that focuses on image quality, and on offering a very wide choice of supported image formats. It also has the same support for EXIF as ImageSharp.

The .NET Core build of Magick.NET currently only supports Windows. The author of the library, Dirk Lemstra is looking for help with converting build scripts for the native ImageMagick dependency, so if you have some expertise building native libraries on Mac or Linux, this is a great opportunity to help an awesome project.

Magick.NET has the best image quality of all the libraries discussed in this post, as you can see in the samples below, and it performs relatively well. It also has a very complete API, and the best support for exotic file formats.

• NuGet: Magick.NET.Core-Q8
• CodePlex: Magick.NET
• Github: dlemstra/Magick.NET

SkiaSharp

SkiaSharp is the .NET wrapper for Google’s Skia cross-platform 2D graphics library.

I’m including SkiaSharp in this post because it’s very promising, despite the fact that it is not yetcompatible with .NET Core. It’s by far the fastest library featured here.

• NuGet: SkiaSharp
• GitHub: mono/SkiaSharp

Performance comparison

The first benchmark loads, resizes, and saves images on disk as Jpegs with a a quality of 75. I used 12 images with a good variety of subjects, and details that are not too easy to resize, so that defects are easy to spot. The images are roughly one megapixel JPEGs, except for one of the images that is a little smaller. Your mileage may vary, depending on what type of image you need to work with. I’d recommend you try to reproduce these results with a sample of images that corresponds to your own use case.

For the second benchmark, an empty megapixel image is resized to a 150 pixel wide thumbnail, without disk access.

The benchmarks use .NET Core 1.0.3 (the latest LTS at this date) for CoreCompat.System.Drawing, ImageSharp, and Magick.NET, and Mono 4.6.2 for SkiaSharp.

I ran the benchmarks on Windows on a HP Z420 workstation with a quad-core Xeon E5-1620 processor, 16GB of RAM, and the built-in Radeon GPU. For Linux, the results are for the same machine as Windows, but in a 4GB VM, so lower performance does not mean anything regarding Windows vs. Linux performance, and only library to library comparison should be considered meaningful. The macOS numbers are on an iMac with a 1.4GHz Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and the built-in Intel HD Graphics 5000 GPU, running macOS Sierra.

Results are going to vary substantially depending on hardware: usage and performance of the GPU and of SIMD depends on both what’s available on the machine, and on the usage the library is making of it. Developers wanting to get maximum performance should further experiment. I should mention that I had to disable OpenCL on Magick.NET (OpenCL.IsEnabled = false;), as I was getting substantially worse performance with it enabled on that workstation than on my laptop.

For both metrics, lower is better.

For both metrics, lower is better.

For both metrics, lower is better.

Lower is better. Note that file size is affected by the quality of the subsampling that’s being performed, so size comparisons should take into account the visual quality of the end result.

Quality comparison

Here are the resized images. As you can see, the quality varies a lot from one image to the next, and between libraries. Some images show dramatic differences in sharpness, and some moiré effects can be seen in places. You should make a choice based on the constraints of your project, and on the performance vs. quality trade-offs you’re willing to make.

CoreCompat.System.Drawing	ImageSharp	Magick.NET	SkiaSharp

Conclusions

There is today a good choice of libraries for image processing on .NET Core, that can fit different requirements, with even more great choices coming in the near future.

If performance is your priority, CoreCompat.System.Drawing is a good choice today if the possible lock issues in Windows server scenarios are not a showstopper for your application. SkiaSharp, when available on .NET Core, will be a fantastic choice.

If quality or file type support is your priority, Magick.NET is the clear winner. Cross-platform support is not quite there yet, however, but you can help.

Finally, the only pure managed code library available at this point, ImageSharp, is an excellent choice. Its performance is close to that of Magick.NET, and the fact that it has no native dependencies means that the library is guaranteed to work everywhere .NET Core works. The library is still in alpha, and significant performance improvements are in store, notably with future usage of Span and ref returns.

Acknowledgements

All four libraries in this post are open-source, and only exist thanks to the talent and generosity of their authors, contributors and maintainers. In particular,

• Frederik Carlier wrote CoreCompat.System.Drawing.
• James Jackson South wrote ImageSharp. James was extremely helpful while I was preparing this post, and even contributed sample code.
• Dirk Lemstra wrote Magick.NET. Dirk was also super-patient and nice, and helped me fix some performance issues I had on my benchmark machine. He also fixed my sample code.
• Matthew Leibowitz maintains SkiaSharp.

Sample code

My sample code can be found on GitHub. The repository includes the sample images I’ve been using in this post.

Where you are today is not where you will be tomorrow. Things change fast these days. Regardless of your industry, youre always in motion evolving and adapting to the shifting needs of your business and workforce. Intune gives you a diverse set of tools for managing your complex mobile environment and empowering a workforce on the move. Intunes innovative combination of mobile application and device management options gives you flexibility in how you manage and secure mobile productivity.

Delivering ongoing innovation from the cloud

Our cloud service model gives you many advantages. It eliminates the need to plan, purchase, and maintain on-premises hardware and infrastructure, lowering costs and making your day-to-day management experience much easier.

For the Intune team, the cloud makes it possible for us to innovate on an ongoing basis. Each month we release new features and product updates designed to help you empower your users to be productive, all while protecting the massive amounts of data flowing through your mobile ecosystem. And because Intune is always up to date, theres no need for a cumbersome deployment process for you to manage.

Theres always something new in Intune. Check out our Intune 2016 year in review to see a list of features, innovations, and product news that we released in 2016.

And be sure to follow us on Twitter and check back here for product updates throughout 2017. If theres a feature or update that you want us to consider, please add it to our User Voice conversation.

Additional resources:

• Visit the Whats New in Microsoft Intune page for more on recent developments in Intune.
• Submit feedback and suggestions to the Intune engineering team
• Find technical resources on the Intune docs site
• Subscribe to the Intune blog RSS feed

In episode 114 of the Office 365 Developer Podcast, Richard diZerega and Andrew Coates talk to MVP Doug Ware about Azure Functions and using them with SharePoint add-ins.

Download the podcast.

Show notes

• www.instantquick.com/index.php/introducing-azure-functions-for-sharepoint
• github.com/InstantQuick/AzureFunctionsForSharePoint
• afspdocs.blob.core.windows.net/docs/index.html
• functions.azure.com
• cloudsaturdayatlanta.com

Got questions or comments about the show? Join the O365 Dev Podcast on the Office 365 Technical Network. The podcast RSS is available on iTunes or search for it at “Office 365 Developer Podcast” or add directly with the RSS feeds.feedburner.com/Office365DeveloperPodcast.

About Doug Ware

Doug Ware is the founder of InstantQuick and a SharePoint MVP based in Atlanta, GA. Doug is best known as the author of many SharePoint books and videos focused on SharePoint development. He helps a crew of fellow Microsoft MVPs organize community events including Atlanta Code Camp and Cloud Saturday Atlanta.

About the hosts

Richard is a software engineer in Microsoft’s Developer Experience (DX) group, where he helps developers and software vendors maximize their use of Microsoft cloud services in Office 365 and Azure. Richard has spent a good portion of the last decade architecting Office-centric solutions, many that span Microsoft’s diverse technology portfolio. He is a passionate technology evangelist and a frequent speaker at worldwide conferences, trainings and events. Richard is highly active in the Office 365 community, popular blogger at aka.ms/richdizz and can be found on Twitter at @richdizz. Richard is born, raised and based in Dallas, TX, but works on a worldwide team based in Redmond. Richard is an avid builder of things (BoT), musician and lightning-fast runner.

A Civil Engineer by training and a software developer by profession, Andrew Coates has been a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft since early 2004, teaching, learning and sharing coding techniques. During that time, he’s focused on .NET development on the desktop, in the cloud, on the web, on mobile devices and most recently for Office. Andrew has a number of apps in various stores and generally has far too much fun doing his job to honestly be able to call it work. Andrew lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and two almost-grown-up children.

Useful links

• Office 365 Developer Center
• Office 365 main blog
• dev.office.com blog
• Twitter
• Facebook
• FlipBoard
• Slack channel

StackOverflow

• http://aka.ms/AskSharePointDev
• http://aka.ms/AskOfficeDev
• http://aka.ms/AskOffice365Dev

Yammer Office 365 Technical Network

• O365 Dev Podcast
• O365 Dev Apps Model
• O365 Dev Tools
• O365 Dev APIs
• O365 Dev Migration to App Model
• O365 Dev Links
• UserVoice

The post Episode 114 on Azure Functions for SharePoint add-ins with Doug Ware—Office 365 Developer Podcast appeared first on Office Blogs.

We are pleased to announce that we are releasing the Windows Management Framework (WMF) 5.1 today via the Microsoft download center.  

WMF 5.1 upgrades Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 R2 to the PowerShell, WMI, WinRM and SIL components that were released with Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 Anniversary Edition.  

You can find out more about the WMF 5.1 release in the Release Notes.   

Please note that for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 the installation instructions have changed significantly. Please read the Install and Configure topic in the release notes. We have removed the requirement for pre-installing WMF 4 on Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, but to do so we had create a script for checking the prerequisites that accompanies the MSU in a ZIP file. This affects only Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. TheInstall and Configure topic in the release notes provides details on using the script.

As always, we welcome your feedback on PowerShell and WMF via our UserVoice site.

Thank you –

The PowerShell Team 

Hello Windows Insiders!

Today we are excited to be releasing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15014 for PC and Mobile to Windows Insiders in the Fast ring. We have fixed a TON of issues that you all filed in the Feedback Hub from the past two flights, so thank you for helping make this product better for everyone. Please do read the notes below, there is a TON of information.

What’s new in Build 15014 for PC & Mobile

Purchase and read e-books in Windows 10 Creators Update (PC & Mobile): Windows Insiders in the U.S. can now purchase e-books directly from the Windows Store and read them in Microsoft Edge.

After purchasing your e-books – you will find those in your Books library, which is a new hub entry in Microsoft Edge right next to your favorites, history, downloads and reading list. Windows Insiders in the US get to try out this experience today starting with this build and we expect to add more content over time.

• Interactive reading experience: To navigate through an e-book, you can use the table of contents or seek bar at the bottom of the browser. You can search for words or phrases and ask Cortana to define specific words and view embedded video and audio content. And of course, pick up where you left of and leave bookmarks on the most interesting pages. You can even read your books when offline.
• Learning tools: You can widen text spacing to improve reading fluency and benefit from typography tailored to reading efficiency.
• Customize for you: Microsoft Edge is built for reading digital content on Windows 10 devices. You can make the reading experiences yours by changing the font and text size, themes, navigation control and more.
• EPUB support: In addition to PDF files and books purchased via the Store – you can read any unprotected e-book in the EPUB file format with Microsoft Edge.

With Books in the Windows Store and Microsoft Edge, everyone can discover and read their favorite content. This is a first step towards empowering people like entrepreneurs, students, creators, educators and others to learn and achieve more.

Try purchasing an e-book from the Windows Store today and let us know what you think of the reading experience!

Lighter shade for Cortana’s search box (PC): We’re experimenting with a new look for Cortana’s search box on the taskbar. Let us know what you think.

Bigger text in notifications for Cortana (PC): Cortana’s voice in notifications and Action Center just got an update to get a consistent visual treatment throughout the OS. This means it is now a bit larger and now uses the accent color.

Pick your own custom accent color (PC): Speaking of accent colors, and for those who sent feedback asking for more than our default selection of accent colors, we’re happy to share that Build 15014 comes with a new custom color option to our Colors Settings. Go in and select any color that piques your interest! Use the color picker to explore and preview your options, or if you know specifically the color you want, click “more” and enter the RGB, HSV, or HEX color code. Try it out and share your thoughts! We’ve also made our new custom color picker available in Background Settings if you have “Solid Color” or “Picture” (type “Center” or “Fit”) selected.

Automatically free up space (PC): To save you an extra step when low on disk space, we’ve added a new option in Storage Settings to automatically get rid of the files you don’t need. Currently we support this for unused temporary files and items that have been in your recycle bin for 30 days. The option is off by default, but you can turn it on under System > Storage Settings and choose what it cleans up.

Merged Wi-Fi settings under “Wi-Fi services” section in Settings app (PC & Mobile): We have combined some of the advanced Wi-Fi settings.  Wi-Fi Sense and Paid Wi-Fi Services have been merged into a single section entitled simply “Wi-Fi services” under Settings > Network & Internet > Wi-Fi. While you may not see “Wi-Fi Sense” mentioned – the feature is still there. “Connect to suggested open hotspots” is one of the settings under “Wi-Fi services”.

New power slider on select Windows 10 Devices (PC): As we mentioned with Build 15002, we are conducting experiments on features which help improve battery life for Windows devices. In a continuation of our battery life work for the Windows 10 Creators Update, some of you will start seeing a new slider in the power flyout on the Taskbar in this build (this is enabled only on select PCs currently, and is not yet wired up to performance/power settings – we have enabled it to get early feedback):

Some of our Windows PC OEM partners have asked for the ability to give people a number of options for how to ‘tune’ their PC for different scenarios. A person playing a game, for example, might be willing to have a few less FPS when on a long flight if it gets them more battery life – whereas the same person playing the same game, when near a power supply, may want top-end CPU performance to eek out every ounce of performance they can get. Please note – the slider does not actually set new power or performance configurations. It’s just the UI right now. We’ll be working with OEMs to determine the best settings for their customers, so that they can ship those on new Windows 10 PCs. In this Insider build, we’re just looking to get your feedback on this UI!

So, what should you expect from this UI?

• Some of you will see the UI while others will not – this is intentional! We need Insiders giving feedback both on the new UI and on the “slider-less” UI, since many PCs receiving the Windows 10 Creators Update will continue to not have the slider.
• If you turn the slider all the way to the left (when on battery power), it will turn Battery Saver ‘on’ (similarly to how, if your PC does not show the slider, there is a ‘toggle’ that can turn on Battery Saver on or off).
• None of the other slider positions – from “Recommended” through “Best Performance” – will affect performance or battery life at all in today’s Insider Preview build.
• In future Insider builds, we will make sure that the only people who can see the slider are the people for whom the slider actually provides different levels of performance and power savings. For now, we want all the feedback we can get!

If you have feedback on the UI, we’d love to hear your feedback – submit it via Feedback Hub under the Power and Battery > Settings category.

While this is just one piece of UI, we’ll be talking more about battery life investments in the Windows 10 Creators Update in a few weeks – so stay tuned!

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for PC

• You may see the Mail app pinned to your Taskbar after updating to Build 15014. The Mail app is now pinned by default to the Taskbar starting with the Windows 10 Creators Update. If you unpin the Mail app after this change, it will not return.
• Some of our more nerdy Insiders will notice that build branch strings and timestamps have been replaced with static values in the version resources of OS binaries (for example – in the properties of a OS-specific .dll file). We compile builds for a lot of engineering branches every day. Each branch would produce nearly identically binaries except for the build branch string and timestamps. Rather than rebuilding all binaries, we will only build binaries that have changed. With this change we can now share binaries across branches making things more efficient for our engineering systems!
• To improve keyboard accessibility, we’ve updated Snipping Tool – moving the mode options under New over to a new Mode button. Clicking New will now immediately start the snip.
• We’ve fixed an issue resulting in the “Working on updates” screen unexpectedly showing a box instead of a progress wheel for some Insiders.
• We fixed an issue where Desktop shortcuts containing the “%” character (usually URI shortcuts with escaped characters) would result in an Explorer.exe crash loop.
• We fixed an issue where projecting to a secondary monitor could result in an Explorer.exe crash loop.
• We fixed an issue where using CTRL + C to copy in Command Prompt wasn’t working.
• We’ve made some polish adjustments to the Background Settings and Printers & Scanners Settings pages.
• We fixed an issue some Insiders may have experienced where their laptops would bugcheck when closing the lid to put it to sleep.
• We fixed an issue in our new Out-Of-Box-Experience (OOBE) where clicking “Skip this step” on the Microsoft Account creation page would unexpectedly loop back to “Who owns this PC?”.
• We fixed a translation issue in the Start menu for those using the Catalan display language – newly installed apps will now show “nou” next to them.
• We fixed an issue where the list of apps in the Surface Dial “Add an app” page via Settings > Devices > Wheel might unexpectedly be empty.
• We fixed an issue where Miracast wasn’t working on recent builds.
• We fixed an issue where if a second notification comes in after dismissing a first notification and immediately opening the Action Center, that notification toast would show on top of the Action Center, rather than within it. We also fixed an issue that could result in sometimes seeing unexpected space at the top of the Action Center.
• We fixed a deadlock from recent Insider builds that could result in the Action Center appearing blank.
• We’ve adjusted our Action Center icon animation logic, so you will now no longer see the same app logo flash multiple times in quick succession after you first log in if many notifications have been received since last logging in.
• Stylized buttons in notifications are now aligned to the right – consistent with other system buttons in dialogs.
• When you use Win + V to set keyboard focus to a notification, we will now show a white focus rectangle around the X to dismiss button if you tab over to it.
• We fixed an issue where refreshing a PDF displayed in Microsoft Edge would result in a blank page and you would need to refresh it a second time for the PDF to appear.
• We’ve updated the alignment of the VPN connect button in the Network flyout to be right-justified and fixed an issue where it was unexpectedly displaying a grey border.
• We fixed an issue where brightness changes made via Settings > System > Display would unexpectedly revert after closing the Settings app.
• We updated the WIN+X flyout to say “Apps and Features” instead of “Programs and Features”.
• We’ve polished the animation when dropping a tile onto another tile in Start in order to create a folder.
• We fixed an issue where, if the User Account Control (UAC) settings were set to “do not dim my desktop”, running something from File Explorer as Admin could result in UAC displaying behind File Explorer.
• We fixed a capitalization issue in the “Open PowerShell here” context menu entry when you Shift + Right Click File Explorer whitespace.
• We fixed an issue for Insiders where customized desktop icon layouts were lost after rebooting. We also fixed an issue where when desktop icons were set to auto-arrange with a docked device and multiple monitors, undocking and docking the device could result in an unexpected desktop icon layout.
• Based on your very passionate feedback, we’ve adjusted the animation when lowering blue light to be a bit smoother. We’ve also made some polish tweaks to Blue Light Settings with more coming soon.
• We’ve updated the system tray logic to be more robust when faced with bad data that could potentially result in Explorer.exe reliability issues.
• We fixed an issue where 3rd party UWP apps would crash on devices if the DPI settings on the machine are >=150%.
• We fixed an issue where if you were to upgrade from Windows 8.1 directly to recent Insider Fast builds, all your Store apps would have been lost during the upgrade process.

Other changes, improvements, and fixes for Mobile

• Due to decreased usage, Apps Corner is no longer available in Windows 10 Mobile starting with Builds 15007 and above.
• We have fixed the issue causing some devices on Build 15007 to frequently reboot.
• We fixed an issue resulting in the Windows Hello greeting being missing from the lock screen.
• We’ve improved speed of displaying HTTP images on live tiles (for example, the images used on the MSN News app live tile).
• We fixed an issue where the phone’s display wouldn’t turn off in close proximity to your face when in a call and using Continuum.
• Stylized buttons in notifications are now aligned to the right – consistent with other system buttons in dialogs.
• We fixed an issue that might cause an Insider’s custom typing dictionary to be unexpectedly deleted.
• We fixed an issue on the new Bluetooth & other devices Settings page where Miracast devices would always show as connected, even if they had been disconnected.

Known issues for PC

• IMPORTANT: The download progress indicator shown when downloading this build is currently broken under Settings > Update & security > Windows Update. It may look like you’re getting stuck at 0% or at other percentages. Ignore the indicator and be patient. The build should download fine and the installation should kick off. See this forum post for more details.
• After updating to this build, nonstop exceptions in the Spectrum.exe service may occur causing PCs to lose audio, disk I/O usage to become very high, and apps like Microsoft Edge to become unresponsive when doing certain actions such as opening Settings. As a workaround to get out of this state, you can delete C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Spectrum\PersistedSpatialAnchors and reboot. For more details, see this forum post.
• During the installation of this build, Insiders may experience a storport.sys bugcheck (GSOD) causing them to rollback to the previous build. There is currently no workaround.
• On some PCs, audio stops working sporadically with ‘device in use’ error”. We are investigating. Restarting the audio service may fix things for a bit.
• Under Settings > Update & security > Windows Update you might see the text “Some Settings are managed by your organization” even though your PC isn’t being managed by an organization. This is a bug caused by an updated flight configuration setting for Insider Preview builds and does not mean your PC is being managed by anyone.
• The Netflix app may crash on launch. Try again and it should work.
• Quicken 2016 will fail to run with an error stating .NET 4.6.1 is not installed. For Insiders familiar with Registry Editor, there is an optional workaround. Take ownership of the following registry keys and edit the “version” value to be 4.6.XXXXX instead of 4.7.XXXXX:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Client

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Full

Note: Please take caution when editing the registry. Changing the wrong value can have unexpected and undesirable results.

• Some Tencent apps and games may crash or work correctly on this build.
• Connecting an Xbox 360 or Xbox One Controller to your PC running this build will cause the DWM to crash resulting in your display flickering and/or appearing blank or black.
• The game DOT2 will fail to launch an d pop up the message “Unable to start game” followed by error window.
• When using Microsoft Edge with Narrator, you may hear “no item in view” or silence while tabbing or using other navigation commands. You can use Alt + Tab when this happens to move focus away from and back to the Edge browser. Narrator will then read as expected.
• Taskbar preview icons are unexpectedly small on high-DPI devices.
• Windows Insiders will unexpectedly see a “Holographic” entry on the main page of Settings.
• When clicking on certain elements in desktop (Win32) games, the game minimizes and cannot be restored.
• Dragging apps from the all apps list to pin on Start’s tile grid won’t work. For now, please right-click on the desired app in order to pin it.
• Some websites in Microsoft Edge may unexpectedly show “We can’t reach this page”. If you encounter this, please try accessing the site from an InPrivate tab.
• On certain hardware types, the Netflix app crashes when starting a movie.
• Saying “Hey Cortana, play on ” doesn’t work immediately after installing the app. Wait 5 minutes for indexing to begin and try again.

Known issues for Mobile

• AAD Identity Settings Sync: Microsoft Edge does not sync Reading List from PC to phone unless there is a restart.
• AAD Identity Settings Sync: Microsoft Edge is syncing passwords on phone but not showing them in “saved passwords” in Microsoft Edge settings.
• When you receive a new email notification and tap on it to open the message, it doesn’t open the Mail app or message.
• New option to pause updates contains text referencing PC-only Windows Defender.
• Insiders with certain devices, such as the Lumia 635 and 636, may not be able to manually change the brightness. The brightness will still automatically adjust if it is set to do so, so please use that for the time being while we investigate.
• The ninja cat emoji display in two characters on the keyboard instead of the expected one.
• Adding a new card / paying with an existing card will not work in Microsoft Wallet.
• The Quiet Hours quick action button in the Action Center doesn’t work.
• Microsoft Edge might sometimes unexpectedly not rotate into landscape mode. If this happens, try quickly locking and unlocking your phone.

A note about the My People experience

As we shared at our event in October, we’re excited to bring your people to the front and center of your computing experience in Windows with the My People experience.  Our goal with Windows is to deliver experiences you’ll love and we’ve made the decision to hold this feature for the next major update to Windows.

Community Updates

We say over and over that the Windows Insiders are the millions who represent the billions. A few weeks ago, Joseph Lee, a blind college student who is a very passionate Windows Insider, shared his story and experiences with WIP with the community. The main Microsoft Accessibility Team was so moved by the story that we are now holistically looking at Joseph’s suggestions and figuring out how to leverage that goodness for ALL of our products.

Windows Insiders, you are very literally changing the lives of millions.  Thank you.

Keep hustling,
Dona <3

The post Announcing Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 15014 for PC and Mobile appeared first on Windows Experience Blog.

Howdy folks,

We’ve heard from many of our largest customers that it’s critically important to them to have easy access to information that helps them understand how their employees and partners are using Azure Active Directory. That understanding allows them to plan their IT infrastructure, to increase usage and maximize the business value they get from Azure AD.

Theusage and activity reportsin the Azure admin portal are a great starting point for accessing and digesting usage trends. But many of you have told us you want the ability to gather richer insights into what’s going on with the various capabilities you rely on in Azure Active Directory. So, today I am excited to announce the new Power BI Content Pack for Azure Active Directory!

With this integration of Azure Active Directory APIs with Power BI, you can easily download pre-built content packs and dig deeper into all the activities within your Azure Active Directory, and all this data is enhanced by the rich visualization experience Power BI offers. And you can create your own dashboard and share it easily with anyone in your organization.

Richer Usage, App Trends and Audit insights

The Azure AD Power BI content pack has three main reports you can use to create your dashboard view. The default dashboard view shows the specific metrics around usage of your Azure AD features. You can get detailed access by clicking into the metrics.

Here are the key reports you get with this content pack:

• App Usage and Trend report: Provides insight into the apps used in your organization, including which ones are being used the most and when. Use this report to see how an app you recently rolled out in your organization is being used or find out which apps are popular. By doing this, you can improve usage if you see the app is not being used.
  
• Sign-ins by location and users: Provides insight into all the sign-ins performed using Azure Identity and into the identity of the users. With this report, you can look at individual sign-ins to find information such as where a user signed in from, which user has signed in the most, and whether the sign-in was successful. And you can drill into details by clicking on a specific date or location.
  

Let us know what you think!

It’s important to note that you need to have Azure AD Premium to access this content pack. You can learn more about how to install and get started with the Azure AD content pack by checking out the Azure AD content pack documentation.

Give these new features a try and let theAAD Reporting team know what you think! We read every piece of feedback to make sure the Azure AD administration experience is top-notch, so let us know what works for you and what doesn’t. I look forward to hearing from you!

Best regards,

Alex Simons (Twitter: @Alex_A_Simons)

Director of Program Management

Microsoft Identity Division

Yesterday we released our unit test execution infrastructure as an open source project.  You’ll also find an open source project with the documentation.

VSTest is a very extensible unit test execution framework.  The base engine, discovers tests and runs them.  It can parallelize across cores, provides process isolation and can integrate with Visual Studio.  It has extensibility for different test frameworks, code coverage, test impact analysis, data collection, test result reporting and much more.

To give you a little context on what I’m talking about I’ve put together an architecture diagram.  The pieces we open sourced yesterday are in yellow.  My diagram of the end to end solution includes clients like VS and VSCode (and others) on the left – though you can just use the command line directly and just skip that swim lane.  We released our cross platform runner and the host process that discovers, loads and runs the tests.

Tests generally use some test framework and vstest supports many.  Many of the test adapters are open source or available as NuGet packages.  You can checkout the VS marketplace for a sampling of them.  We did not open source any new adapters with this release – but we don’t even build most of them.  The big one we do build is MSTestV2 and VERY MANY people use it.  We did not open source that framework at this time but we plan to in the next few months – it just wasn’t ready at this time.

If you use unit testing in VS, there’s a good chance you use this infrastructure already.  If you are using the unit testing capabilities that have been delivered in the .NET Core previews, you are also using it.  Now it is open source so you can see how it works and, ultimately, contribute to it.  We have not yet opened up the project for contributions but we will.  Again, crawl, walk, run.

Thanks and, as always, any feedback or questions are welcome

Brian

What is the SQL Server Early Adoption Program (SQL EAP)?

The SQL Server Early Adoption Program (SQL EAP) is a Microsoft program started in January 2017 to help both customers and partners adopt the next version of SQL Server before general availability.

Who is SQL EAP for?

If you are interested in adopting SQL Server v.Next on Windows or Linux in production, then SQL EAP is for you.SQL EAP is also for partners who want to build SI (system integrator) offerings and ISV (independent software vendor) applications using SQL Server v.Next. Upon successful validation, these applications and solutions can be supported in production prior to the general availability release. Customers and partners who would like to validate new features such as Adaptive Query Processing and High Availability (HA) on Linuxare an especially good fit for SQL EAP. Enroll for the program here.

What are the benefits?

• Through the program you will have direct access to the engineering team through a Program Manager Buddy. Your PM Buddy is there as a primary contact within the development team to help connect you to the right people to help your solution adopt SQL Server v.Next. Typically, PM Buddies communicate with the customer via email and regularly scheduled meetings. PM Buddies help scope the project when the customer first joins SQL EAP so that there is common understanding of the schedule and requirements.
• SQL EAP participants have the opportunity to bring your workload to the SQL Customer Advisory Team Customer Lab to directly engage and test with the SQL Server team.
• Customers in SQL EAP will be able to try out new features, sometimes before the public gets to see them, and provide the feedback directly to the engineering team. They will have the opportunity to provide input into the prioritization of product requirements for SQL Server v.Next via regular surveys. Participants will also be able to discuss feature design with PMs.
• You will have access to a private Yammer group for SQL EAP customers to communicate with one another and the engineering team, helping customers learn from each other. Content on the private Yammer group will be considered confidential and covered by the Microsoft NDA required to participate in SQL EAP.
• Customers going into production will be fully supported by Microsoft Support before general availability. A special support channel is provided to raise cases for SQL Server v.Next. The SQL Server engineering team will be backing up the Microsoft Support team to provide assistance as needed. Customers in production will also have support for release-to-release upgrades.

What are the requirements?

• Complete the form here. Enrollments will be evaluated and a PM Buddy aligned to access workload validation and those on track for production deployments.
• An NDA with Microsoft will be required to participate in the program. If you do not already have an NDA, we will help to get one signed.
• Customers in SQL EAP that are going in production will need to sign a EULA amendment that grants them the permission to use the software in production.

Get Started Today:

Apply for the program here!

Join the Webinar:

We are having a webinar called SQL Server on Linux Next Steps on 1/24 at 6pm PST and also 1/31 at 9pm PST. Please join us to learn more about SQL Early Adoption Program. The webinar covers:

• The latest updates to SQL Server v.Next
• How SQL Server 2016 v.Next can improve your applications and solutions
• Our SQL Early Adoption Program where you can get advice from our technical experts and get technical resources to help upgrade or migrate your applications to SQL Server v.Next.

We will have a Q&A session at the end of the webinar.

Link to Skype Broadcast 1/24 at 6pm PST
Link to Skype Broadcast 1/31 at 9pm PST

Learn More:

• Download the preview
• Read the documentation
• Get started with code samples
• Follow us on Twitter at @SQLServer
• Sign up to stay informed about SQL Server on Linux

This Week on Windows, we’re talking about your chance to play Halo Wars 2: Blitz Beta before it ships, all the ways you can easily customize your Start and New Tab pages in Microsoft Edge and the latest Windows 10 features coming to Windows Insiders. Head over here to check out the latest Windows Insider preview builds, or sign up for the Windows Insider Program here!

Here’s what’s new in the Windows Store this week:

Halo Wars 2: Blitz Beta

Today, the Halo Wars 2 Blitz Multiplayer Beta officially launches on Windows 10 PC and Xbox One! The Blitz multiplayer beta is open to anyone on Windows 10 PC and for Xbox Live Gold members on Xbox One, and runs from today until Jan. 30. Blitz offers a unique twist on Halo Wars 2 gameplay by replacing the traditional real-time strategy (RTS) aspects of resource collection, base building and tech tree planning with a streamlined way to build your armies and jump straight into the action.

Gigantic (Game Preview)

The big excitement of third-person-shooter Gigantic (Free, with IAP options) gets a new Exile in the North update, introducing playful giant Pakko. He enters the battlefield equipped with a fluffy, wintry exterior and a warm, jovial disposition – which means he knows how to make the clash quite a refreshing experience.

Six

Inspired by true events, the gripping new series Six ($19.99 HD, $14.99 SD) follows the heroes of Navy SEAL Team Six on a covert mission against the Taliban that goes awry. Watch the series premiere now in the Movies & TV section of the Windows Store.

Viber Sticker Pack Sale

Easy-to-use, easy-to-connect Viber (Free, with IAP options) brings free calls, free video messaging and more right to your Windows phone. And now through Jan. 26, enjoy 50% off select sticker packs – just the fun, colorful additions your need to express yourself fully in chats.

Have a great weekend!

The post This Week on Windows: New Windows 10 preview, Microsoft Edge tips and Halo Wars 2 appeared first on Windows Experience Blog.

As part of our rapid preview model, Microsoft is excited to announce that the next version of SQL Server (SQL Server v.Next) Community Technology Preview (CTP) 1.2 is now available on both Windows and Linux. In CTP 1.2 we implemented bug fixes and added support for SQL Server v.Next on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. You can try the preview in your development and test environments now, or apply to join the SQL Server Early Adoption Program to get support for implementing SQL Server v.Next in production.

Key CTP 1.2 enhancement: Support for SUSE Linux Enterprise

In SQL Server v.Next, a key design principle has been to provide customers with choice about how to develop and deploy SQL Server applications: using technologies they love like Java, .NET, PHP, Python, R and Node.js, all on the platform of their choosing. Now in CTP 1.2, Microsoft is bringing the power of SQL Server to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, providing more deployment options and a streamlined acquisition process.

Said Kristin Kinan, Global Alliance Director, Public Cloud at SUSE, “We’re thrilled that Microsoft is announcing support for SQL Server v.Next on SUSE Linux Enterprise Linux. SQL Server and SUSE customers will now be able to run performant, secured SQL Server applications with reliable, cost-effective infrastructure from SUSE.”

You can get started with SQL Server on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v12 SP2 using the installation directions. To learn more about how SQL Server runs on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and container platforms, you can register for this upcoming webinar that will take place on February 15, 2017. For additional detail on CTP 1.2, please visit What’s New in SQL Server v.Next, Release Notes and Linux documentation.

SQL Server Early Adoption Program (EAP)

Today we also announced the SQL Server v.Next Early Adoption Program (EAP). The Early Adoption Program is designed to help customers and partners evaluate new features in SQL Server v.Next, and to build and deploy applications for SQL Server v.Next on Windows and Linux. Qualified applicants will receive technical assistance from Microsoft engineers to deploy and support an application in production before general availability, or to build or modernize an application for SQL Server v.Next. Read the detailed blog on EAP to learn more about all the benefits of this program and how to get started.

Get SQL Server v.Next CTP 1.2 today!

Try the preview of the next release of SQL Server today! Get started with the preview of SQL Server with our developer tutorials that show you how to install and use SQL Server v.Next on macOS, Docker, Windows, and Linux and quickly build an app in a programming language of your choice.

• Sign up for the Early Adoption Program (EAP)
• Install on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
• Install on Red Hat Enterprise Linux
• Install on Ubuntu Linux
• Pull and run a Docker container on Linux, Windows, or macOS
• Download the preview for Windows
• Create a SQL Server on Linux virtual machine in Azure
• Register for the Introduction to SQL Server on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Webinar

Have questions? Join the discussion of SQL Server v.Next at MSDN. If you run into an issue or would like to make a suggestion, you can let us know through Connect. We look forward to hearing from you!