Software

Microsoft previews new Visual Studio, .NET

Floats fresh Azure SDK

Iain Thomson in San Francisco Thu 15 Sep 2011 // 00:16 UTC

BUILD Microsoft has given MSDN subscribers access to a preview version of Visual Studio 11 and a new version of .NET as well as developer version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

The company announced the new developerware on Wednesday at its BUILD conference in Anaheim, California. The Visual Studio preview provides tools for building Windows 8 Metro applications in HTML5, JavaScript, C#, Visual Basic and C ++, and it includes new tools for code analysis and review as well as extension management. At the conference, Microsoft demoed a visual image editor that allowed coders to highlight a single pixel and instantly find the line of code responsible for it.

Microsoft has also released a preview version of .NET 4.5, with improved support for HTML5 and CSS3, and a preview of ASP.NET MVC 4, which Redmond says will handle web rendering better in a variety of browsers.

Separately, the company released a preview version of Team Foundation Services, a collaboration tool for coders that runs atop its Azure cloud. And it disgorged a new Azure SDK, version 1.5, with a beefed up emulator and remote desktop encryption and a Windows 8 toolkit. ®

Similar topics

Broader topics

Narrower topics

Corrections Send us news

Other stories you might like

Visual Studio adds ability to edit code in All-in-One Search

Just one more wafer-thin feature to pop in Microsoft's swelling dev suite

Richard Speed Tue 28 Jun 2022 // 16:18 UTC

Microsoft has added the ability to edit code while in Visual Studio's All-In-One Search user interface.
The feature is included in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 2 and follows changes to search functionality in the development suite. At the start of the year, Microsoft introduced indexed Find in Files to speed up the already rapid searching (compared to Visual Studio 2019 at any rate).
The indexed Find in Files fired up a ServiceHub.IndexingService.exe process on solution load or folder open which scraped through the files to construct an index. Worries that the indexer would slug performance like certain other Microsoft indexing services were alleviated somewhat by the use of Below Normal operating system priority.

Continue reading
Microsoft unboxes Exchange Online certification in bid to push customers off-prem

More support engineers needed to keep the email flowing, it seems

Richard Speed Fri 24 Jun 2022 // 12:18 UTC

Microsoft has added a certification to augment the tired eyes and haunted expressions of Exchange support engineers.
The "Microsoft 365 Certified: Exchange Online Support Engineer Specialty certification" was unveiled yesterday and requires you to pass the "MS-220: Troubleshooting Microsoft Exchange Online" exam.

Continue reading
Azure issues not adequately fixed for months, complain bug hunters

Redmond kicks off Patch Tuesday with a months-old flaw fix

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Tue 14 Jun 2022 // 13:30 UTC

Updated Two security vendors – Orca Security and Tenable – have accused Microsoft of unnecessarily putting customers' data and cloud environments at risk by taking far too long to fix critical vulnerabilities in Azure.
In a blog published today, Orca Security researcher Tzah Pahima claimed it took Microsoft several months to fully resolve a security flaw in Azure's Synapse Analytics that he discovered in January.
And in a separate blog published on Monday, Tenable CEO Amit Yoran called out Redmond for its lack of response to – and transparency around – two other vulnerabilities that could be exploited by anyone using Azure Synapse.

Continue reading

Wi-Fi hotspots and Windows on Arm broken by Microsoft's latest patches

Only way to resolve is a rollback – but update included security fixes

Richard Speed Mon 20 Jun 2022 // 15:30 UTC

Updated Microsoft's latest set of Windows patches are causing problems for users.
Windows 10 and 11 are affected, with both experiencing similar issues (although the latter seems to be suffering a little more).
KB5014697, released on June 14 for Windows 11, addresses a number of issues, but the known issues list has also been growing. Some .NET Framework 3.5 apps might fail to open (if using Windows Communication Foundation or Windows Workflow component) and the Wi-Fi hotspot features appears broken.

Continue reading
Microsoft updates Azure Form Recognizer: Invoices go multi-language

Power Apps Express Design doesn't get to have all the AI fun

Richard Speed Tue 7 Jun 2022 // 16:03 UTC

Days after the debut of doodle-recognizing Express Design on the Power Apps platform, Microsoft has updated its Azure sibling: Form Recognizer.
While Express Design is very much the new kid on the block, its ability to build a form from scribbles can be traced back to the Applied AI service, Form Recognizer.
Azure Form Recognizer, as its name suggests, pulls text and structure from documents using AI and OCR. The theory goes that users can automate data processing with the tech, which accepts PDFs, scanned images and handwritten forms (although, as with all handwriting recognition systems, scrawl barely readable by humans can equally stump the robots.)

Continue reading
Microsoft promises to tighten access to AI it now deems too risky for some devs

Deep-fake voices, face recognition, emotion, age and gender prediction ... A toolbox of theoretical tech tyranny

Katyanna Quach Tue 21 Jun 2022 // 22:54 UTC

Microsoft has pledged to clamp down on access to AI tools designed to predict emotions, gender, and age from images, and will restrict the usage of its facial recognition and generative audio models in Azure.
The Windows giant made the promise on Tuesday while also sharing its so-called Responsible AI Standard, a document [PDF] in which the US corporation vowed to minimize any harm inflicted by its machine-learning software. This pledge included assurances that the biz will assess the impact of its technologies, document models' data and capabilities, and enforce stricter use guidelines.
This is needed because – and let's just check the notes here – there are apparently not enough laws yet regulating machine-learning technology use. Thus, in the absence of this legislation, Microsoft will just have to force itself to do the right thing.

Continue reading

Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio: Too edgy for comfort?

And perhaps too heavy, which is a weighty issue for a machine that turns into a tablet

Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Tue 21 Jun 2022 // 07:25 UTC

Desktop Tourism My 20-year-old son is an aspiring athlete who spends a lot of time in the gym and thinks nothing of lifting 100 kilograms in various directions. So I was a little surprised when I handed him Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio and he declared it uncomfortably heavy.
At 1.8kg it's certainly not among today's lighter laptops. That matters, because the device's big design selling point is a split along the rear of its screen that lets it sit at an angle that covers the keyboard and places its touch-sensitive surface in a comfortable position for prodding with a pen. The screen can also fold completely flat to allow the laptop to serve as a tablet.
Below is a .GIF to show that all in action.

Continue reading
Microsoft Defender goes cross-platform for the masses

Redmond's security brand extended to multiple devices without stomping on other solutions

Richard Speed Fri 17 Jun 2022 // 15:30 UTC

Microsoft is extending the Defender brand with a version aimed at families and individuals.
"Defender" has been the company's name of choice for its anti-malware platform for years. Microsoft Defender for individuals, available for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, is a cross-platform application, encompassing macOS, iOS, and Android devices and extending "the protection already built into Windows Security beyond your PC."
The system comprises a dashboard showing the status of linked devices as well as alerts and suggestions.

Continue reading
Microsoft pulls Windows 10/11 installation websites in Russia

Big Tech sanctions continue to roll in, Putin retaliates with counter sanctions

Laura Dobberstein Tue 21 Jun 2022 // 13:30 UTC

Microsoft has blocked the installation of Windows 10 and 11 in Russia from the company's official website, Russian state media reported on Sunday.
Users within the country confirmed that attempts to download Windows 10 resulted in a 404 error message.

Continue reading
Running DOS on 64-bit Windows and Linux: Just because you can

DOS isn't dead. You can still run it and its apps, even now

Liam Proven in Prague Tue 28 Jun 2022 // 08:52 UTC

FOSS Fest There are still ways to run DOS apps under 64-bit Windows and Linux, and a lot of free apps to choose from.
One of the differences between the Microsoft and Apple approaches to maintaining widely used OSes is that Apple is quite aggressive about removing backwards compatibility, while Microsoft tries hard to keep it.
One of the few times Microsoft removed a whole compatibility layer from Windows was with the launch of 64-bit Windows, which went mainstream with Vista in 2007. 64-bit editions of Windows can't run 16-bit apps, whether they're for DOS or Windows.

Continue reading

ABOUT US

MORE CONTENT

SITUATION PUBLISHING

The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing

SIGN UP TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

Security Scorecard

Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2022

Do not sell my personal information Cookies Privacy Ts&Cs