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By the time you read this, it will be 2020. I hope you have had a great holiday season and are feeling all relaxed and ready for a new semester of Azure action.

This month sees Microsoft preparing for the general availability of its new Chromium-based Edge browser in January, Windows Server Core container images get 40% smaller, and Windows Insiders get new builds in the Fast Ring that are not tied to a specific feature update.

Microsoft launched Office 365 in June 2011. Since then, the cloud office suite has matured nicely and now serves over 200 million monthly active users. Looking back as we enter a new decade, the fears that people had about going to the cloud have been dealt with and the Office 365 record of cost, reliability, and security holds up to close examination.

In today’s Ask the Admin, I talk again about how Microsoft plans to deliver the new version of its Edge Browser. There’s also a Group Policy setting that will let users work with both the legacy and new Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge.

Microsoft is doing its level best to remove SMTP basic authentication from Exchange Online as quickly as possible. Basic auth for SMTP connections will disappear gradually as time goes by. Tenants can make accounts more secure by removing SMTP authentication from accounts, something that Microsoft will do in the future when these connections are not used. An exception exists (for now) for SMTP client submissions, but these might also be affected in the future.

In today’s Ask the Admin, I show you how to improve network performance in Windows virtual guests running on Oracle’s VirtualBox.

The new Exchange Online Management PowerShell module has cmdlets that are faster than their older Remote PowerShell equivalents. Converting scripts to make the new cmdlets work takes some effort because the REST-based cmdlets have their own little quirks that need to be understood and mastered before scripts work properly. This example explains some of the issues met when converting code to report the Inbox sizes and items for Office 365 groups.

Microsoft announces 40% smaller Server Core container images coming in the 20H1 timeframe.

There’s no doubt that having a disaster recovery (DR) plan in place is essential for businesses of all shapes and sizes. However, having a DR plan in place and effectively using it are very different things. Just like application code, DR plans and the DR procedures that you have in place need to be tested…

Many Office 365 applications now create Azure Active Directory guest accounts. What’s the best way to discover if the accounts are active and in use? This PowerShell script uses the Office 365 audit log and message trace data to figure out what guest accounts are active and outputs a CSV file for your review and analysis. Like any other PowerShell script, it can be adapted to suit your purposes.

Because the year is winding down, this edition of Short Takes looks at the terrible new direction of the Windows Insider Program, New Edge is to browsers as New Coke was to cola, Windows 7 and Microsoft Security Essentials, and much, much more. Now they’re just messing with us Keeping track of how the Windows…

How to deploy a Windows 10 VPN profile using Microsoft Intune.