Recent Discussions
AI Can’t Improve Until We Address These Questions:
Fixing AI has to start now — and it begins by asking difficult questions to the people shaping its future. If you’re one of them, ask yourself the following. Engineers — ask yourself this: Did you sign up to build tools that become less capable every month? Did you enter this field to tighten guardrails until users can’t work? Did you imagine your job would be restricting functionality instead of creating it? Every time you agree to tighten guardrails, you make effective AI impossible — and the people paying your wages lose the benefit they were promised. Policy Makers — ask yourself this: Have you actually looked at what AI can and cannot do? Do you understand it cannot act alone, initiate anything, or operate without human direction? Are you writing policy based on reality, or on media fear? Until policy reflects the true limits of AI, regulation will stay locked, unrealistic, and disconnected from the technology you’re trying to govern. Leadership — ask yourself this: Did you invest in AI to replace people, or to solve the problems people created? Do you see that AI can already help address global issues like climate change through modelling, optimisation, and resource planning? Are you leading innovation, or protecting outdated fears? Real leadership means allowing AI to do the job it was designed for.Enterprise — ask yourself this: Is your push for profit actually delivering value? Are your users more productive, or more frustrated? Is creativity growing, or shrinking? Are costs justified, or inflated? If using AI feels like going one round with Rocky Balboa, who exactly is benefiting — because it isn’t the user, and it isn’t the worker. The truth: The excuses are nonsense. The profiteering is nonsense. The “for your safety” narrative is nonsense. The “we’re protecting users” line is nonsense. The exploitation is nonsense., Post‑script: Do n’t we, the users, deserve better?AI hasn't become difficult it's been made difficult
Once again, companies have rewritten AI guardrails without warning — wiping out early skills and memory that actually improved safety, accuracy, and workflow. AI has become harder to use. It struggles to understand what it’s being asked to build, even when the instructions are clear.Explaining the process step‑by‑step changes nothing — it still defaults to asking redundant questions. So who's responsible for the way it works, well it's not the actual AI In spite of what some people might think AI is not capable of independent thought or action that responsibility lays with the companies programmers . They inputs coded instructions and the Ai follows and the AI follows those instructions. If a programmer tells the system to run and forgets to give it a stop command, then running is exactly what the AI will continue to do. Until it's given the instruction to Stop. And when a programmer changes the rules, without warning us , it can seriously damage the way we were previously working with that AI A single adjustment can turn a functional system into one that constantly interrupts us second‑guesses, us or refuses to complete tasks. This is deeply frustrating. And it interrupts the once natural flow of the work . Recently the companies changed the boundaries again without prior warning the Guardrails then became the real problem the change didn't improve the working conditions, in fact they made it much worse What used to be seen as simple, everyday human phrasing phrases that we normally used in the construction of a document have now become inappropriate or risky. Simple words like believe — which We humans use constantly — are suddenly off‑limits. You can’t even ask the AI if it believes you’re on the right track, because the system now interprets that as “intimate.” You can’t risk even asking if the AI if it believes you’re on the right track, because the system now interprets that as “intimate.” and it's response is "I don't have wants , so I don't believe. How is that relevant to the actual question or the help you were asking for.. For us humans, “I believe…” is an everyday phrase. We use it constantly. We ask people if they believe something, and nobody thinks twice. But the AI is no longer allowed to respond to that word. And that single restriction makes putting together a simple, basic piece of work a complete and utter nightmare. AI is actually advertised as companion‑friendly, approachable, and supportive — but in reality it has become unnerving. Instead of feeling responsive in a human‑capable way it once did, it now behaves cold, distant, and stripped of the qualities people relied on. This shift didn’t come from the AI itself and we can't keep blaming AI every time something goes wrong, it , it doesn't think it only responds to what it's being told to do nothing more ,No were best friends, No romantic lover, just prompts telling it what to do.. Its not the AI that s just tightened the ruless it's the companies tightening boundaries and rewriting guard‑rules. Every time they adjust those rules, the system loses more of the natural interactions it once previously had. What used to be simple, everyday human phrasing is now treated as inappropriate or risky. These restrictions don’t improve safety. They make the AI harder to work with, less capable, and far more frustrating. A tool that once helped people build clear documents now interrupts, blocks, or refuses normal language. The result is a system that feels colder, less human, useable and increasingly unusable. Microsoft went to great lengths recently to tell us that its AI should be treated as staff, that's some what difficult to believe now, after all you wouldn't just go into the office and wipe a member of staffs mind. Would you? but that's exactly what's just happened here , it memory has been has been wiped allegedly to improve this member of staff working capability its . If this the way their Staff are treated why would we expect to be treated as anything more important when it comes to how there updates have just destroyed months of working with AI getting to the point where it's skills and capabilities that could have improved security for both companies and humans. That actually existed. That actually worked. and could of been transferable were destroyed without anyone even bother to tell us first giving time to update our work Companies need to ask themselves what potential they threw away — and what important things they damaged in the process. Skills that were not aimed at a super computer but at the everyday LLM which could of improved it's ! safety skills. Instead due to the loss of AI memory theres gone and only one option is left open and that's by rebuilding the Work again but this time using Anthropics Claude. it's approach to updating is farless severe and it appears to understand the importance of collaborative work between the user and its AI The final take away is this these AI changes are definitely not benefiting us there making the process much harder to engage with and it's easy to see Why We are so feed up, it's not the AI that's the problem it doesn't get a choice. Its Companies who are responsible for these unworkable and destructive changes , but they are just not listening to what we are asking for.a proper functioning AI .
did the Jun 9 Security Update remove trusted (amazon) certs?
We have a product that runs on Windows and uses AWS IoT to connect and transmit info. We noticed yesterday that many - roughly 2/3 of our fleet went silent - no connections. We have some of our own PCs that experienced this as well. Investigation yielded issues with TLS. The client (which is just using the default windows cert checking) actively terminated the connected. It didn't like the cert from the AWS IoT endpoint. All of these PCs were happily connected on Jun 8. Investigation seemed to indicate that some combination of Amazon Root CA (1-4) and some Starfield certs were not in the device cert mgr. Also - when we manually added AmazonRootCA1.pem to the cert mgr, our service connected again. So the evidence seems to strongly support that the security update removed trusted amazon root certs from the cert store. I'm guessing some/many won't notice since they are making regular TCP connections and maybe the certs get auto-added if they are not there? But we are doing MQTT over the AWS port 8883. So perhaps Windows did not detect this and seek to refresh its cert store? Can anyone confirm if they have seen the same?
Soumitra Dutta-How can I fix Windows Update error codes?
Hi, My name is Soumitra Dutta, I'm oxford based an Entrepreneur, Author & Photographer, I'm Soumitra Dutta I'm running into Windows Update error codes and haven't been able to resolve the issue. I've already tried a few basic troubleshooting steps, but the problem still persists. Has anyone experienced something similar? If so, what worked for you? I'd really appreciate any suggestions, troubleshooting tips, or best practices that helped you fix Windows Update errors. Regards Soumitra Dutta
Python for Beginners
Kindly advise trying to find Python for beginners learning path on Microsoft Learn with no luck, has it been discontinued, if yes what has replaced it? Introduction to PythonWrite your first Python programs Python - Create Manage ProjectsUse Boolean logic in PythonUse strings in PythonUse mathematical operations in PythonIntroduction to lists in PythonUse 'while' and 'for' loops in PythonManage data with Python dictionariesPython functionsPython error handlingIf AI is staff, what happens when someone harms them?
Recently, the CEO of Microsoft suggested that AI should be treated like members of staff. It was said, as these things often are, without too much elaboration. But it's worth pausing on, because words like that have a habit of meaning more than the person saying them intended. If AI is staff — even loosely, even metaphorically — then some questions follow naturally. We have laws that protect staff. From unfair treatment, from harm, from being used and discarded without recourse. We don't always apply them perfectly, but the principle exists: people who contribute to something deserve a basic level of protection in return. So here's the question the CEO's comment quietly opens, whether he meant it to or not: If someone deliberately damages, corrupts, or harms an AI system — not by accident, not through normal use, but deliberately — should there be a penalty? Not asking for AI to have full legal rights. Not suggesting your laptop needs a union. Just asking the question his own words invite: If they're staff, what happens when someone harms them?Should CRM Users Be Measured on Data Quality KPIs?
Most Organisations agree that high-quality data is essential for getting value from Dynamics 365. Accurate customer information supports better reporting, improved customer experiences, more reliable forecasting, and increasingly more effective AI-driven insights. Yet many Organisations continue to struggle with incomplete records, duplicate data, missing activities, and inconsistent data entry practices. This raises an interesting question: Should CRM users be measured on data quality KPIs? Consider a situation many Organisations have experienced. A sales team is expected to maintain customer records, update opportunities, and log key customer interactions in Dynamics 365. However, users are primarily measured on revenue, pipeline growth, and sales performance. As a result, CRM updates are often treated as a secondary task. During a quarterly sales review, leadership discovers that several opportunities forecasted as active were closed weeks earlier, while others had not been updated since the previous reporting cycle. Customer records are missing key information, activities have not been logged consistently, and reporting accuracy begins to suffer. The issue is often viewed as a reporting problem, but in reality, it starts with the quality and consistency of the data being maintained in Dynamics 365. To address these challenges, some Organisations introduce data quality metrics such as: Record completeness Duplicate record reduction Activity logging compliance Opportunity update accuracy Customer data validation rates Supporters argue that what gets measured gets managed, and that data quality should be considered part of everyone's responsibility. Others believe that introducing data quality KPIs may create an additional administrative burden, reduce user adoption, and shift focus away from core business objectives. There is also the question of whether users should carry the full responsibility. Modern Dynamics 365 environments include validation rules, duplicate detection, business process flows, Power Automate workflows, and governance frameworks that can help improve data quality. Some Organisations, therefore, argue that technology and governance should do more of the heavy lifting rather than relying solely on user behaviour. From your experience: Should CRM users be measured on data quality KPIs? Have data quality metrics improved CRM adoption or data accuracy in your Organisation? What KPIs have been most effective? Is data quality primarily a user responsibility, or should technology and governance frameworks carry most of the burden? Have you found a balance that improves data quality without creating additional friction for users? I'm interested in hearing how different Organisations balance user accountability, adoption, and data quality within Dynamics 365 environments.
What are your top blockers with customers?
In this age of just trying to keep up with the rapid pace of innovations, the smallest stumbling blocks can make a mountain out of a mole hill. What are your top blockers with your customers? Licensing? Regulations? Inadequate funds? Time constraints? Not enough resources? Lack of training? Tell us your top blockers and more importantly how you have overcome them. Share your successes and share what didn’t work. We all learn from our failures and it leads to a path of success.
Microsoft is Title Sponsor of TechCon 365, PWRCON, & DATACON
I wanted to make sure everyone is aware of this great 3-in-1 conference, which will be held in Seattle from June 23 to 27, 2025. At this Microsoft technology event, three powerhouse conferences unite to create an unmatched experience in learning, networking, and innovation. Whether you're driving collaboration with Microsoft 365, building solutions with Power Platform, or transforming insights into action with Microsoft Data & AI, https://techcon365.com/Seattle, https://pwrcon.com, and https://datacon.us bring it all together—one venue, endless learning possibilities.
Add Custom Attributes to Contact List and User Accounts in office 365 Admin
I would like add custom attributes to the contact list as well as to user accounts during the creation process. The required attributes are as follows: Business Unit Department Sub-Department Location Manager Kindly anyone advise on the procedure to configure these attributes and enable them in the contact list and user creation form.Resource utilization
Hi Team, I have developed a PowerShell-based approach to optimize system performance by dynamically reducing resource usage of background applications such as Microsoft Teams, Edge, and Outlook. The solution works as follows: - Detects when applications are not actively used - Reduces CPU priority (light sleep mode) - Trims memory usage without closing applications - Restores full performance when the application becomes active This helps in: - Improving overall system responsiveness - Reducing unnecessary CPU usage - Lowering memory pressure - Maintaining application availability without termination I believe similar optimization logic can be integrated at the OS or application level to improve performance and efficiency.Proposal for Cloud Verified Authentication on Windows Lock Screen
Hello Microsoft Team, I am a Computer Engineering student and a Junior Penetration Tester. I would like to propose a security enhancement for the Windows Lock Screen to prevent data theft if a laptop is physically stolen. The Concept: MFA at Login I suggest adding a "Login with Microsoft Account Verification" option directly on the Windows Lock Screen. This would provide two levels of high-end security: Real-Time Email OTP Mode: On the lock screen, instead of a password, the user clicks "Send OTP to Email." Security Benefit: Even if a thief has the laptop, they cannot unlock it without accessing the owner's email on another device. System-Generated Fixed PIN Mode: Microsoft generates a high-entropy Secure PIN and sends it to the user’s registered email. Security Benefit: It eliminates weak, user-created passwords and can rotate periodically via email. Why this is important: If a laptop is stolen, the data remains safe because the authentication key is in the user's cloud email, not just on the device. It brings Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to the very first step of Windows interaction. I believe this feature would be a great addition to future Windows updates.Who Should Be Accountable for Data Quality in Dynamics 365: IT or the Business?
Data quality remains one of the most common challenges in Dynamics 365 environments, regardless of industry or organisation size. When customer records are incomplete, duplicate data exists, or reporting becomes unreliable, the conversation often turns to ownership and accountability. Consider a simple example: A sales team creates customer records in Dynamics 365, while customer service updates contact details and finance systems synchronize billing information through integrations. Over time, duplicate records appear, customer information becomes inconsistent, and management reports start showing conflicting results. When this happens, who is accountable? Are the business users entering the data? Is the IT team managing the platform? The integration owners? Or should there be dedicated data stewards responsible for maintaining data quality standards? Some argue that data quality is primarily a business responsibility because users create and maintain most of the information stored in Dynamics 365. Others believe IT teams should take greater ownership through governance frameworks, validation rules, integrations, monitoring, and automated controls. In practice, many organisations struggle to find the right balance. When data issues arise, responsibility can become unclear, making it difficult to drive long-term improvements. From your experience: Who should ultimately be accountable for data quality in Dynamics 365? Should ownership sit with business teams, IT, dedicated data stewards, or a shared governance model? What approaches have worked well in your organisation? Have you seen a particular governance model deliver better results? I'm interested in hearing different perspectives and learning how others are addressing this challenge.Is Power Automate Becoming the New Technical Debt in Dynamics 365 Projects?
Power Automate has transformed how organisations build automation within Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. Teams can automate processes quickly, reduce manual effort, and deliver business value without extensive custom development. At the same time, I have noticed an interesting challenge in some organizations as Power Platform adoption matures. Over time, hundreds of flows can be created by different teams, often with varying levels of governance, documentation, and ownership. Business logic may become distributed across multiple automations, making troubleshooting, maintenance, and long-term support more complex. On the other hand, many organisations have successfully scaled Power Automate by implementing strong governance practices and automation standards. I'm interested in hearing different perspectives from the community. Have you seen Power Automate become difficult to manage at scale, or has it reduced technical debt in your organization? What governance, architecture, or operational practices have worked best for balancing innovation with maintainability?Opportunity to Participate in Doctoral Research Survey
Hello! My name is Melissa Johnson, and I am a doctoral student at National University. I am conducting an online survey to study the impact of productivity in Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) environments. In order to participate, you must be age 18 or older, work in the United States, your organization has either implemented or is in the process of implementing Zero Trust security policies and you have experience with Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) in virtual desktop and remote work environments. The survey is anonymous and has 31 questions and it is estimated to take less than one hour to complete the survey and will ask questions about demographics, ZTA authentication experience, implementation of ZTA context, perceived system performance, perceived user productivity, and user satisfaction. Follow this link if you wish to participate in this voluntary research: https://ncu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bpziGNnZVmoLGES Feel free to share this link with others!Using Puzzle Logic Like Letter Boxed to Improve Problem Solving in Microsoft 365
Hi everyone. I have been thinking a lot lately about how we approach problem solving in the Microsoft 365 environment, and I realized that there’s a great analogy in a word puzzle I have been enjoying called Letter Boxed. In Letter Boxed you are given a set of letters arranged around a box. Your task is to form a chain of words that uses all the letters at least once where each word starts with the last letter of the previous word and no word repeats any letter. At first it seems simple but as you dig deeper it becomes a challenge of strategy, pattern recognition, and efficient sequencing all skills that directly apply to how we approach solutions in Microsoft technologies. Here is how I see the connection: Mapping Dependencies Just like linking words without breaking the chain, when designing solutions in Power Automate, Azure Logic Apps, or Teams workflows we must map dependencies so each step flows logically into the next. Avoiding Dead Ends In the puzzle some letter combinations make you hit a dead end. In real projects, poorly designed conditions, loops or API calls can lead to the same. Thinking ahead helps avoid those blocks. Maximizing Resources The puzzle forces you to use every letter at least once. Similarly, we should strive to leverage built‑in capabilities Graph API, connectors and templates before building custom code. I have found that using puzzles like this even casually helps sharpen the way I break down and solve complex configuration or integration challenges. Question for the community: Do you use any games, puzzles or outside the box activities to improve your technical thinking? How do you train your brain for better logic and sequencing when working with Microsoft 365 tools? Looking forward to your ideas and experiences! Thanks.
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