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Microsoft has recently shared more details about its plans for moving commercial customers to the new Outlook for Windows client. The company plans to support the classic version of the Outlook app until at least 2029. Microsoft plans to deploy the new Outlook for Windows client in three phases. Currently, the app is in the…

SQL Server is a relational database. But what is a relational database exactly? Mike Otey, our resident SQL Server expert, explains in this article. What is a relational database? A relational database is a type of data storage mechanism that organizes data into tables where each table consists of rows and columns. It is typically…

Earlier this year, Microsoft disclosed a breach in its corporate email servers by Russian state-sponsored hackers. Now, the company revealed that the same hackers, known as Midnight Blizzard, have infiltrated Microsoft’s source code and other internal systems. In January, Microsoft unveiled that Midnight Blizzard had successfully gained unauthorized access to the email accounts of some…

In this episode of First Ring Daily, Brad Sams and Paul Thurrott discuss Microsoft’s decision to drop support for the Windows Subsystem for Android and the Amazon App Store on Windows 11 in March 2025.

Microsoft has announced a new Restricted SharePoint Search feature for Copilot for Microsoft 365 customers. The new setting will allow administrators to control the SharePoint sites accessible to Copilot users within their organization. Microsoft has acknowledged that some organizations may have sensitive or confidential information stored in their SharePoint sites that they don’t want to…

Microsoft has launched Windows 365 Customer Lockbox for its commercial customers. This feature provides organizations with tools to control access to user content, especially when Microsoft support engineers need to resolve support issues. Microsoft support engineers usually rely on telemetry and debugging tools to troubleshoot problems with their services. However, there may be times when…

Last November, Microsoft introduced its Secure Future Initiative (SFI) to deal with cybersecurity threats. The company announced today the launch of a regular series to track the milestones and progress of the SFI, demonstrating a commitment to transparency and resilience. Microsoft Secure Future Initiative is a comprehensive effort to bolster security capabilities and protect customers…

Microsoft has introduced advanced investigation and response capabilities within its Defender for Endpoint service. The latest release brings support for file collection and investigation package collection response actions in public preview for macOS and Linux devices. According to Microsoft, security professionals should have a clear view of compromised devices to identify the malicious activities that…

Microsoft has recently addressed a zero-day vulnerability within the Windows AppLocker driver. The security flaw has been exploited by the North Korean threat group Lazarus for privilege escalation to carry out rootkit attacks. The security flaw (tracked as CVE-2024-21338) was first discovered by the cybersecurity firm Avast last year. The Avast researchers created a proof-of-concept…

Microsoft continues to improve its Loop app that launched in preview back in March 2023. The company has released a new update that allows users to automate time-consuming tasks with Power Automate-backed rules. According to Microsoft, the new automation feature is designed to enhance user productivity by saving time and effort previously devoted to repetitive…

With Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI) solutions becoming more common, many customers are now concerned with building clusters on top of those environments. In this article, I’ll explain how to build a guest HCI cluster and why traditional approaches don’t work. In the past, customers built redundancy and resilience based on virtualization and Storage Area Networks…

Microsoft released 37 new features and capabilities for its Teams collaboration platform in February 2024. These updates include a new Copilot experience in chat, improvements to webinars and town halls, and updates tailored for Teams Rooms & devices. Microsoft has launched a new Copilot experience in Microsoft Teams Chat. The new version offers various advantages…