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Latest posts
C++ futures part 5: std::future and std::shared_future
Getting the results back out.
MSVC Build Tools Version 14.52 Release Candidate Now Available
We are pleased to announce the availability of the release candidate for Microsoft C++ (MSVC) Build Tools version 14.52. With this release, C++23 is ready for production use and available through the /std:c++23 compiler option; see below for details. This is the last MSVC v14.52 preview before it moves to stable status and full support. You can download it from the Visual Studio 2026 Insiders Channel. As this is the release candidate, it is now the default toolset installed with C++ workloads in this channel. To check if it’s installed simply make sure one or both of these components are checked in the installer:...
What’s new in Microsoft Foundry | September 2026
Explore September's models, Routines, Tool Search, Model Router, and Insights through one two-agent workflow that turns public releases into a Foundry developer changelog.
Introducing dotnetup: A toolchain manager for .NET
Learn how the new dotnetup tool helps macOS and Linux developers install, manage, and update user-local .NET SDKs and runtimes.
Stop waiting on a failed build
Stop solution builds after the first project failure so you can return to fixing the error sooner.
C++ futures part 4: What if I want an immediate on-thread std::async?
Providing the case that the C++ language won't do.
AI Agents: Meet the Azure Cosmos DB vNext Emulator
Over a typical 2 day window, we record 10 times as many emulator sessions lasting more than 30 minutes for vNext as for the legacy emulator. Our bet is that agentic development is helping drive the difference! The appeal is straightforward: coding agents need a database they can run anywhere. They also need a database they can start, seed, test against and debug as they work. Our vNext emulator fits that workflow naturally. A different kind of developer With the vNext emulator, we're building for a broader idea of the developer: a person at a keyboard, a coding agent, or the two working together. The...
Vector stores in Agent Framework for Python: familiar foundations, streamlined for agents
Vector stores have been part of the Python experience in Semantic Kernel for some time. With Microsoft Agent Framework, we have ported that work forward rather than starting over. This post focuses on Python. For the .NET equivalent, see Use vector stores in .NET AI apps. The foundation remains familiar: typed record definitions, stores and collections, batch storage and retrieval, embedding generation, vector search, and a growing set of integrations. If you have used Semantic Kernel's vector-store APIs, you will recognize the overall model. At the same time, this is more than a straight p...
Canada’s 2026 time zone updates: guidance for Microsoft SQL
Affected locations in British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba will not turn their clocks back at 02:00 local time on November 1, 2026. They will remain at UTC−07:00, UTC−06:00, and UTC−05:00, respectively. Microsoft’s interim guidance for British Columbia, Alberta, and Manitoba describes the new Windows time zones and temporary workarounds. SQL Server on Windows requires the applicable Windows update—not a separate SQL Server product update. For SQL Server on Linux, Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Managed Instance, the following guidance applies when the new regional time zones are not yet available in ...
Azure MCP Server 3.0 stable release: More tools. More possibilities
Explore the new Azure MCP Server 3.0 stable release, with AI agent tools for Terraform, backup, recovery, and troubleshooting, plus stronger security defaults.
Build offline-first apps with Azure DocumentDB and PowerSync
Modern applications often need to work in places where network connectivity is slow, intermittent, or unavailable. Field service, retail, logistics, healthcare, and mobile SaaS applications are common examples. PowerSync recently introduced alpha support for Azure DocumentDB, giving developers a way to combine Azure DocumentDB as the cloud operational database with local SQLite databases on client devices. Applications can remain responsive and continue working offline while PowerSync synchronizes relevant data in the background. Note: PowerSync support for Azure DocumentDB is currently an alpha release. Be...
From extraction to action: Using grounding and confidence to build reliable document workflows
Learn how Azure Content Understanding grounding, field-level confidence, and calibration help teams prioritize human review and build reliable document workflows.
New Tools, New Workflows and the Value of the Visual Studio Subscription: What We Learned at VSLive! San Diego
What happens when developers who have spent decades working with Visual Studio start rethinking how they write code, learn new skills, and expand their access to development tools? At VSLive! San Diego, we had an opportunity to find out as developers gathered for five days of technical sessions, hands-on learning, and conversations about Visual Studio, .NET, AI, cloud, data, and modern application development. One of the most interesting things we heard in San Diego was how readily experienced developers are adopting new tools and workflows. GitHub Copilot is part of that story, and developers aren't...
C++ futures part 3: The mental model for std::async
Doing things later in different ways.
Announcing .NET 11 Release Candidate 2
.NET 11 Release Candidate 2 is available with improvements across libraries, runtime, SDK, MSBuild, NuGet, F#, ASP.NET Core, .NET MAUI, and Windows Forms.
October Patches for Azure DevOps Server
We are releasing new patches for our self‑hosted product, Azure DevOps Server. We strongly recommend that all customers stay up to date with the latest, most secure version of Azure DevOps Server. The most recent release, Azure DevOps Server, is available on the download page. The following versions have been patched. For more details on these updates, see the release notes: ⬇️Azure DevOps Server Patch Download ✅Verifying Installation To verify that the patch is installed, run the following command on the Azure DevOps Server machine using the patch installer you downloaded: Replace with the name of the...
Is it MSIX? Part 3: Find Package and Application Identity with TASKLIST and PowerShell
We previously determined how to programmatically retrieve a packaged process' package and application identity. Now let's find MSIX package identity using existing tools. TASKLIST.EXE Using the packaged app from our previous example, we know the "image name" (aka executable filename) and that its PID (process ID) is 7664. lists packaged processes and their package names: That's overkill when we're interested in a specific process. We can use the (filter) option to limit the output to our target process: Or we can specify the image name and get the same result: The column is actually the package fu...
Azure Content Understanding Prebuilt Analyzers: packaging domain knowledge for document AI
Learn how Azure Content Understanding prebuilt analyzers combine domain knowledge with grounding and confidence, and what Advanced Contextualization preview benchmarks show about quality, modeled cost, and latency.
C++ futures part 2: The mental model for std::promise, std::packaged_task
Building things out of the state.
Build AI-powered apps without creating a vector database
Developers building AI applications face a familiar challenge: how do you ground AI experiences in enterprise content while maintaining security, compliance, and governance? You can use the Microsoft 365 Copilot Retrieval API for SharePoint Embedded, which helps you add Microsoft 365 Copilot and agent experiences to your SharePoint Embedded apps when you want to control the grounding step, the prompt, and the model yourself. In addition, you can use the SharePoint Embedded Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, now available in public preview, to build and manage apps with a coding agent. Together, the...
WinUI Gallery 3.0 is here: TableView, Charts, InkCanvas and more
Hey WinUI developers! If you're new around here, WinUI Gallery is the go-to app for exploring WinUI 3 controls, samples, design guidance, and handy tools, all in one place. Today, we're excited to announce WinUI Gallery 3.0, the first version of the Gallery built on the experimental channel of the Windows App SDK. That means you can try upcoming WinUI controls and APIs in the Gallery as soon as they ship in an experimental release. 🧪 Embracing experimental Until now, new controls usually showed up in the Gallery after they reached a stable Windows App SDK release. By then, the APIs were mostly locked, and t...
.NET and .NET Framework October 2026 servicing releases updates
A recap of the latest servicing updates for .NET and .NET Framework for October 2026.
Durable Task in the Real World: What Problems Does It Actually Solve?
Five practical examples of when durable execution makes sense, when it does not, and what it means for AI agents.
C++ futures part 1: The mental model
Managing a value that is produced later.
Go 1.27.2-1 and 1.26.9-1 Microsoft builds now available
A new release of the Microsoft build of Go including security fixes is now available for download.
One way of thinking about access specifiers in C++/WinRT implementation types
Mapping them to concepts from C# and the now-defunct C++/CX.
Introducing the Agent Experience (AX) Practitioner Playbook
AI coding agents now pick the SDK, the version, and the pattern for your developers. The AX Practitioner Playbook is our method for finding out whether they get your technology right, and for fixing the sources they rely on when they don't.
Introducing the Native Confluent Cloud Connector Experience in Azure Cosmos DB!
Co-authored with Praveen Raja P Azure Cosmos DB already includes a powerful event foundation: change feed provides a durable, ordered record of item changes within each logical partition. It is ideal for reacting to operational data as it changes, building projections, and driving workflows directly from the database. Confluent Cloud adds a complementary event layer rather than replacing change feed. Kafka topics can carry database changes alongside explicit business events from many systems, retain them independently from the operational database, and let multiple consumer groups process and replay each s...
Dynamic Workflows in Azure Functions Hosted Skills: Durable, AI-Led Work for Event-Driven Apps
Azure Functions is the event-driven application platform, and Hosted Skills adds AI reasoning to your app. Dynamic Workflows give the app a durable way to carry out AI-led, multi-step work after the triggering invocation is finished. The model writes a plan (a DAG) one time, and Durable Functions runs it. In our benchmark, token use decreased by 56-93% and end-to-end latency decreased by 77-95%, with the same output quality.
Adding persistence to the Aspire dashboard
Aspire 13.6 adds dashboard persistence and run history. Revisit telemetry after a restart, retain more data, and explore the SQLite and Dapper implementation behind it.
If one anti-malware software is good, does that make two better?
Not always.
New Wiki Editor Experience
We are excited to announce a new editing experience for Wiki pages. We are replacing the existing editor with a new editor built on Monaco Editor, the same editor technology that powers Visual Studio Code. Monaco brings many of the editing capabilities familiar to Visual Studio Code to Wiki pages, while preserving the functionality of the existing Wiki editor. New features The new Monaco based editor includes: If you are already familiar with Visual Studio Code, the new editor should feel familiar and provide a better experience for creating and editing Wiki content. Enable the Public Preview To e...
Pre-authenticated (tempauth) URLs are retiring: move to Microsoft Entra ID tokens before April 1, 2027
Starting April 1, 2027, affected Microsoft Graph file APIs will no longer return pre-authenticated URLs. Applications using these APIs must authenticate requests with Microsoft Entra ID access tokens.
Faster by Design: Performance engineering in the Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server
A database driver sits on the critical path of many applications. When a frequently executed path performs unnecessary work, even a small amount of overhead can compound across millions of operations. Over the past several releases, we have systematically profiled frequently executed paths across the Microsoft JDBC Driver for SQL Server, identifying opportunities to improve efficiency without changing application behavior. What began with ResultSet processing expanded into bulk copy operations, parameter metadata, Always Encrypted, and authentication. The work followed a consistent principle: measure where the ...
Azure Document Intelligence and Azure Content Understanding: a practical guide
Compare Azure Document Intelligence and Azure Content Understanding across extraction architectures, workload fit, Layout capabilities, deployment options, and practical evaluation criteria.
AI Development on Windows: from PyTorch and llama.cpp to Windows ML
Today we are highlighting improvements across a few key open-source projects many of you already use, as well as updates to Windows ML. To empower developers, we must support the broad range of tools for experimentation and exploration across inference and training, in addition to our production grade native inference stack. Available today, Windows adds experimental llama.cpp support to Windows ML so you can run GGUF models locally through new task-specific APIs. Windows ML is the unified, high-performance local AI inferencing framework for Windows. Our experimental Windows-native Runtime API is now in preview ...
