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Get the latest information, insights, and news from Microsoft.

Streamlining your Git workflow with Visual Studio 2026

You’re a .NET developer with a busy morning, and an Azure DevOps ticket drops: “Login endpoint 500s under load.” You’ve got to fix it, review a teammate’s feature branch, and keep your repo clean - all before lunch. Visual Studio’s Git tools turn this everyday Git workflow of...
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Retirement of Global Personal Access Tokens in Azure DevOps

In the new year, we’ll be retiring the Global Personal Access Token (PAT) type in Azure DevOps. Global PATs allow users to authenticate across all accessible organizations. While this can feel convenient, a single credential with broad reach creates a concentrated security risk —...
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Latest posts

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Dec 26, 2025
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Why are we worried about memory access semantics? Full barriers should be enough for anybody

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Raymond Chen
You have to find new ways of going faster.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 25, 2025
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Why is the last letter of my string not making it to the clipboard?

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Raymond Chen
The struggle for null termination.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 24, 2025
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Why does my Ctrl+M accelerator key activate when I press the Enter key?

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Raymond Chen
Understanding the difference between keys and characters for accelerators.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 23, 2025
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When irate product support customers demand to speak to Bill Gates

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Raymond Chen
So transfer them to his office, or so it seems.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 23, 2025
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SharePoint Framework (SPFx) roadmap update – December 2025

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Vesa Juvonen
SPFx is powering the future of Microsoft 365. From AI-driven portals to seamless integrations across SharePoint, Teams and Viva, SPFx is driving innovation at scale. This monthly blog series kicks off our journey into the next evolution - transparent, community-driven, and built for the AI era. Let’s shape what’s next, together.
Microsoft 365 Developer Blog
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Dec 22, 2025
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How AI fixed my procrastination

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Mads Kristensen
I struggled to get started. For ages, I kept putting off building this website, creating a new programming language for Visual Studio, and coming up with fresh color themes. Each project looked overwhelming, and I couldn’t find the time or motivation to jump in. It all just felt like...
Visual Studio Blog
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Dec 22, 2025
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All the other cool languages have try...finally. C++ says "We have try...finally at home."

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Raymond Chen
The destructor serves as the "finally".
The Old New Thing
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Dec 22, 2025
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The New Test Run Hub is Going Generally Available!

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Panagiotis Liaros
Delivering high-quality software requires clarity, speed, and collaboration. That’s why we introduced the New Test Run Hub in Azure Test Plans. A modern, streamlined experience designed to make test execution and analysis fast and intuitive. And we’re excited to announce that this...
Azure DevOps Blog
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Dec 19, 2025
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Azure Developer CLI (azd) Dec 2025 - Extensions Enhancements, Foundry Rebranding, and Azure Pipelines Improvements

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Kristen Womack
This post announces the December release of the Azure Developer CLI (`azd`).
Azure SDK Blog
Dec 19, 2025
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Work item linking for Advanced Security alerts now available

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Laura Jiang
Security vulnerabilities don't fix themselves. Someone needs to track them, prioritize them, and actually ship the fix. If you've ever tried to manage security alerts alongside your regular sprint work, though, you know the friction: you're looking at an alert in one tab, switching to...
Azure DevOps Blog
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Dec 19, 2025
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A shortcut gives me a weird path for a program shortcut that doesn't point to the executable, so what is it?

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Raymond Chen
It's a placeholder because the shortcut is to an MSI application.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 18, 2025
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What’s new in Microsoft Foundry | October and November 2025

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Jenn Cockrell
Azure AI Foundry is now Microsoft Foundry. Read the latest announcements about agents, models, tools and more.
Microsoft Foundry Blog
Diagram showing an AI coding agent pointing to a DSL document, with arrows to mitigation strategies: curated examples, domain rules, and compiler integration.
Dec 18, 2025
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AI Coding Agents and Domain-Specific Languages: Challenges and Practical Mitigation Strategies

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Chris Romp
1. Introduction AI coding agents/assistants such as GitHub Copilot have become common in modern software engineering workflows. Their strengths—rapid pattern completion, context-aware suggestions, and the ability to learn style from local code—stem from broad training on large...
All things Azure
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Dec 18, 2025
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Concluding thoughts on our deep dive into Windows clipboard text conversion

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Raymond Chen
Stick to Unicode and you'll be fine.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 18, 2025
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Introducing the Copilot Studio + Azure AI Search Solution

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Ian Jensen
Introduction to a scaleable and secure turnkey architecture for deploying Copilots connected to Azure AI Search.
ISE Developer Blog
JanusGraph and Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra: A Powerful Combination
Dec 17, 2025
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Unlock the power of distributed graph databases with JanusGraph and Azure Apache Cassandra

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Srikanth Sridhar
Connecting the Dots: How Graph Databases Drive Innovation In today’s data-rich world, organizations face challenges that go beyond simple tables and rows. Whether it’s uncovering hidden relationships in social networks, detecting fraud, or powering recommendation engines, graph...
Azure Cosmos DB Blog
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Dec 17, 2025
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Celebrating 10 Years of DirectX 12

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Stefan Bojanic
DirectX12 shipped in 2015 with a simple goal: give developers more control so games run faster, look better, and scale across Windows PC and console. Over the last decade, DirectX 12 delivered on that promise. We added features and made it easier for developers to focus on gameplay &...
DirectX Developer Blog
Dec 17, 2025
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Aspire 13.1 - Our holiday gift to you

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David Fowler
Aspire 13.1 is here with CLI-based MCP for AI agents, dashboard improvements, Azure updates, and TLS termination support.
Aspire Blog
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Dec 17, 2025
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Deducing the consequences of Windows clipboard text formats on UTF-8

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Raymond Chen
Working out the implications.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 16, 2025
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Unlock your email potential with Schema.org

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Karishma S
Email is a key part of how people get things done, whether it’s booking a reservation, confirming a package delivery, or managing a cab reservation. But as inboxes become increasingly cluttered, important transactional information often gets buried. Users are forced to open multiple...
Microsoft 365 Developer Blog
a list of all the C++ tools available to agent mode to call upon (get_symbol_call_hierarchy, get_symbol_class_hierarchy, get_symbol_info, and get_symbol_references)
Dec 16, 2025
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C++ code editing tools for GitHub Copilot: now in Public Preview

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Sinem Akinci
In November, we introduced C++ code editing tools for GitHub Copilot as a Private Preview, focusing on partnering with customers to tackle one of the common, taxing challenges for C++ development: refactoring at scale. Since then, we've listened to feedback and refined our tooling to make...
C++ Team Blog
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Dec 16, 2025
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Beyond Ergonomics: How the Azure Command Launcher for Java Improves GC Stability and Throughput on Azure VMs

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Monica Beckwith
In our previous blog we introduced Azure Command Launcher for Java (jaz) —a safe, resource-aware way to launch the JVM without hand-tuning dozens of flags. This follow-up shares performance results, focusing on how jaz affects G1 behavior, heap dynamics, and pause characteristics under...
Microsoft for Java Developers
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Dec 16, 2025
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Microsoft.Testing.Platform Now Fully Supported in Azure DevOps

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Youssef Fahmy
Azure DevOps enhanced support for Microsoft.Testing.Platform, from running tests to publishing results!
.NET Blog
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Dec 16, 2025
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Debugging, but Without the Drama (A Visual Studio 2026 Story)

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Harshada Hole
It starts the way these things always start.  A red build. A failing test. And that quiet, sinking feeling of “This worked yesterday.”  Meet Sam. Sam’s not a junior, not a rockstar, just a solid developer who’s shipped enough code to know that bugs don’t care how...
Visual Studio Blog
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Dec 16, 2025
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Why is the Windows clipboard taking the scenic route when converting from CF_TEXT to CF_OEM­TEXT?

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Raymond Chen
Something is forcing it down an alternate path.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 16, 2025
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Azure Boards integration with GitHub Copilot

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Dan Hellem
A few months ago we introduced the Azure Boards integration with GitHub Copilot in private preview. The goal was simple: allow teams to take a work item from Azure Boards and send it directly to GitHub Copilot so the coding agent could begin working on it, track progress, and generate a...
Azure DevOps Blog
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Dec 15, 2025
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Build declarative agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot with MCP

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Rishabh Agrawal
With introduction of MCP support, it’s now much easier for developers to integrate their business workflows, SaaS, and LoB systems into Copilot via declarative agent.  
Microsoft 365 Developer Blog
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Dec 15, 2025
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How to Build iOS Widgets with .NET MAUI

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Toine de Boer
Build professional iOS widgets with .NET MAUI, from static displays to interactive widgets.
.NET Blog
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Dec 15, 2025
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Behind the scenes of the Visual Studio feedback system

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Mads Kristensen
Here on the Visual Studio team, our top priority is making your coding experience smoother and more enjoyable. And that begins with truly listening to your feedback. We understand that sometimes sharing your thoughts can feel like tossing bug reports and suggestions into a black hole. It...
Visual Studio Blog
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Dec 15, 2025
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The Windows clipboard automatic text conversion algorithm is path-dependent

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Raymond Chen
When the journey is not half of the fun.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 12, 2025
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Resolving an ambiguity in the Windows clipboard automated text conversion table

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Raymond Chen
Who goes first?
The Old New Thing
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Dec 12, 2025
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Retirement of Global Personal Access Tokens in Azure DevOps

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Angel Wong
In the new year, we’ll be retiring the Global Personal Access Token (PAT) type in Azure DevOps. Global PATs allow users to authenticate across all accessible organizations. While this can feel convenient, a single credential with broad reach creates a concentrated security risk —...
Azure DevOps Blog
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Dec 11, 2025
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Making Windows Terminal awesome with GitHub Copilot CLI

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Kayla Cinnamon
As someone who lives and breathes in the command line, I love making my terminal feel like home. Windows Terminal is full of personalization options that really allow for a custom experience. Additionally, I can stay within my terminal for my development with GitHub Copilot with the...
Microsoft for Developers
Dec 11, 2025
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Aspire Integrations, Batteries Included

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Sebastien Ros
Aspire provides a *batteries included* approach through **integrations**
Aspire Blog
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Dec 11, 2025
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Studying the various locale mismatch scenarios in Windows clipboard text format synthesis

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Raymond Chen
If they don't match, then the 8-bit strings are basically broken already.
The Old New Thing
Azure Cosmos DB vNext Emulator: Query and Observability Enhancements
Dec 11, 2025
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Azure Cosmos DB vNext Emulator: Query and Observability Enhancements

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Abhishek Gupta
The Azure Cosmos DB Linux-based vNext emulator (preview) is a local version of the Azure Cosmos DB service that runs as a Docker container on Linux, macOS, and Windows. It provides a cost-effective way to develop and test applications locally without requiring an Azure subscription or...
Azure Cosmos DB Blog
Azure Cosmos DB: Necoming a Search-Native Database
Dec 10, 2025
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Azure Cosmos DB : Becoming a Search-Native Database

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Hari,
Samer,
Harsha
For years, “Database” and “Search systems" (think Elastic Search) lived in separate worlds. While both Databases and Search Systems operate in the same domain (storing, indexing and querying data), they prioritized different aspects. OLTP Databases prioritized Structured and...
Azure Cosmos DB Blog
November 2025 (version 1.107)
Dec 10, 2025
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November 2025 (version 1.107)

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Visual Studio Code Team
What's new in the Visual Studio Code November 2025 Release (1.107). Read the full article
VS Code Blog
General Availability of SharePoint Framework 1.22
Dec 10, 2025
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General Availability of SharePoint Framework 1.22 - A Major Refresh of the Build & Tooling Experience

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Vesa Juvonen
We are excited to announce general availability for the SharePoint Framework 1.22. This time focus is primarily on updating the build toolchain and to address npm audit issues.
Microsoft 365 Developer Blog
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Dec 10, 2025
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Streamlining your Git workflow with Visual Studio 2026

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Mads Kristensen
You’re a .NET developer with a busy morning, and an Azure DevOps ticket drops: “Login endpoint 500s under load.” You’ve got to fix it, review a teammate’s feature branch, and keep your repo clean - all before lunch. Visual Studio’s Git tools turn this everyday Git workflow of...
Visual Studio Blog
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Dec 10, 2025
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How does Windows synthesize the CF_LOCALE clipboard format?

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Raymond Chen
Getting it from a place that might have been obvious in the past, but maybe not today.
The Old New Thing
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Dec 10, 2025
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Agent Onboarding Process for Agentic Systems: Maintain accuracy at scale

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Vikesh,
Vidhya
A robust agent onboarding process is the backbone of scalable, reliable multi-agent AI systems—enforcing uniqueness, rigorous evaluation, and responsible AI practices at every step.
ISE Developer Blog
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Dec 9, 2025
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Announcing Azure DevOps Server General Availability

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Gloridel Morales
We’re thrilled to announce that Azure DevOps Server is now generally available (GA)! This release marks the transition from the Release Candidate (RC) phase to full production readiness, delivering enterprise-grade DevOps capabilities for organizations that prefer self-hosted...
Azure DevOps Blog