rss.livelink.threads-in-node

Windows Laptop randomly changes display resolution after reboot

RMcneill — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:43:11 GMT

My Windows laptop keeps resetting its display resolution to a lower setting every time I reboot, even though I set it back to the correct one. The screen becomes distorted and icons get rearranged, requiring me to manually change the resolution again each time after restart.

Laptop refuses to boot when a particular SD card is inserted

Sandraouch — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:42:12 GMT

My laptop fails to boot properly whenever I insert a specific SD card into the card reader. It either gets stuck during startup or shows an error message, and removing the SD card allows the laptop to start normally. I need help troubleshooting this issue.

AVD: Admin visibility/reporting for MMR optimization status per session

andrewong — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:41:08 GMT

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Only one specific USB device causes the laptop to freeze

ahsatbba8 — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:40:58 GMT

My laptop consistently freezes whenever I connect a particular USB device, but all other peripherals work without any problem. This specific device triggers an immediate system lockup, forcing me to perform a hard reboot to regain control of my computer.

Comment convertir de la musique Spotify au format MP3 sur un ordinateur ?

Leoleei — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 06:22:25 GMT

Est-ce possible ?

J'espère que vous pourrez m'aider. J'aimerais savoir comment convertir spotify en mp3 sur mon ordinateur portable sous Windows 10. J'ai cherché des informations en ligne mais je n'ai pas trouvé de méthode claire et fiable pour convertir spotify en mp3 directement depuis mon PC.

Si quelqu'un a déjà réussi à le faire ou connaît une solution adaptée, je suis preneur de vos conseils et de votre retour d'expérience.

Laptop keyboard works in BIOS but not in Windows

RMcneill — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 05:57:31 GMT

My laptop keyboard functions correctly within the BIOS environment, yet it becomes completely unresponsive once Windows loads. I have already tried reinstalling drivers and checking device manager, but the operating system still fails to recognize any input from the built-in keyboard.

Screen brightness changes by itself on Windows 11

Cody-Hutson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 05:56:22 GMT

My screen brightness keeps changing automatically on Windows 11, both when plugged in and on battery, even with all power-saving features and adaptive brightness settings turned off. This happens randomly throughout the day and makes it difficult to work, as I constantly have to manually readjust the brightness back to my preferred level.

Laptop works normally only when plugged in

Michaelolough — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 05:53:43 GMT

My laptop runs perfectly on AC power, but immediately slows down and drains rapidly once unplugged. This battery issue persists even after a full charge.

Does Microsoft have a video editor for basic editing on PC?

Jacsson — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 05:54:12 GMT

I am on Windows 11. I'd like to do some basic video editing on my PC — things like trimming clips, merging a few together, adding some background music, and maybe simple text overlays. I believe there's a built-in tool that comes with the system, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to launch it and get started.

What is the Microsoft video editor called and is it discontinued or not?

Task Finish Date Bug

juliuse — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 01:15:51 GMT

Finish dates for tasks do not appear, are greyed out and are un-editable. This bug needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

Teams audio driver causing sound problems in WoW

Iengelen — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 11:26:50 GMT

hi,

a couple of days ago I updated Teams on my Mac and since that moment I no longer had sound in World of Warcraft.

This seems to be an issue that exists for years already.

description and solution on the wow forum

Is anything being done to get this fixed?

I mean Blizzard is basically owned by Microsoft now. It can't be rocket science to come up with a solution.

rgds

Igor

Keep Azure Monitor issues and ServiceNow ITOM incidents in sync

Harel Broitman — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 10:33:18 GMT

Operational problems rarely stay within one monitoring tool. Azure Monitor may detect and investigate a service degradation, while operations teams manage ownership, escalation, and resolution in an IT Service Management (ITSM) system. Without a connected workflow, responders must copy context between systems and keep two records current throughout the incident.

Azure Monitor issues now provide a simplified integration with ServiceNow IT Operations Management (ITOM). You can configure Azure Monitor to create a corresponding alert in ServiceNow ITOM whenever an issue is created. ServiceNow can then create an incident in ServiceNow ITSM, or in another ticketing system connected to your ServiceNow ITOM instance.

The integration can also keep the Azure Monitor issue, its related alerts, the ServiceNow ITOM alert, and the resulting incident connected. A ServiceNow pull connector fetches related Azure context. When bidirectional sync is enabled on that connector, ServiceNow can also update Azure Monitor after incidents or alerts close. Responders can therefore continue working in their established tools without manually reconciling each update.

Move from issue context to the response workflow

An Azure Monitor issue is more than an individual alert. It is a shared technical workspace where on-call engineers and other responders can collaborate throughout a service degradation. It can include issue metadata, investigation results produced by the Azure Copilot Observability Agent, related alerts, and affected resources.

Because the issue is integrated into Azure Monitor, the Observability Agent, and related monitoring flows, responders can work together from the Azure context already available. Team members can review and refine the investigation, gather more evidence, understand affected resources, and coordinate mitigation through the appropriate tools.

The ITSM incident provides the operational record for managing the degradation. It supports assignment, priority, escalation, service-level tracking, communications, and closure. Teams use the Azure Monitor issue to collaborate on technical investigation and mitigation, while they use the ITSM incident to manage the broader response process.

An issue can be created from a saved investigation or, in public preview, by autonomous operations in the Observability Agent. Connecting it to an ITSM incident lets each audience use its primary workspace without separating the technical investigation from the operational record.

Issue actions provide the connection point. When an issue is created or updated, Azure Monitor triggers the action groups configured as default actions on the Azure Monitor Workspace that stores the issue. You can use email, SMS, voice, Logic Apps, Event Hubs, Azure Functions, Automation Runbooks, secure webhooks, or webhooks.

This means Azure Monitor issues can integrate with a variety of ticketing and ITSM systems. You can use a Logic App or Azure Function to transform and route issue data, or use a webhook when the target system exposes an endpoint. The ServiceNow ITOM integration extends this actions and notifications model with an end-to-end connector designed specifically for Azure Monitor issues.

Learn more about the available notification and workflow options in Azure Monitor issue actions.

A connected path from Azure Monitor to ServiceNow

After you configure the integration, a newly created Azure Monitor issue triggers the default action groups on its Azure Monitor Workspace. A secure webhook sends the issue to the ServiceNow ITOM instance, where an Azure Monitor push connector receives it.

The result is a connected operational flow:

Azure Monitor creates an issue from a saved investigation or an autonomous operation.
The workspace's default action group sends the issue through its secure webhook action.
The ServiceNow push connector receives the issue and creates a corresponding ITOM alert.
The ServiceNow pull connector fetches the issue's related alerts and resources from Azure Monitor.
ServiceNow creates an incident in the connected ticketing system, and responders use the linked records throughout the response.

The push connector only carries issues and alerts from Azure Monitor to ServiceNow. The pull connector is also required to fetch an issue's related alerts and resources. This gives responders a view of the broader problem instead of a ticket containing only a single signal.

The Azure Monitor issue can also contain investigation results produced by the Observability Agent. In the current integration, those investigation results aren't synchronized to ServiceNow. Adding them to the ServiceNow context is planned for a future iteration.

To move from ServiceNow back to the technical investigation, open the corresponding ITOM alert in Service Operations Workspace. In the Utilities pane, select Open Azure Monitor Issue in Azure Portal. The link opens the connected issue so the on-call engineer can continue working with its Azure Monitor context.

An Azure Monitor issue with its status, related alerts, and affected resources.

The corresponding ServiceNow ITOM alert and its link to the Azure Monitor issue.

The incident created in ServiceNow ITSM from the ServiceNow ITOM alert.

Configure the integration

The setup connects an issue action in Azure Monitor with push and pull connectors in ServiceNow ITOM. At a high level, complete these steps:

Create or reuse an Azure Monitor action group. Add a secure webhook action that targets the inbound endpoint of your ServiceNow ITOM instance. Secure webhooks use Microsoft Entra ID authentication to protect the connection. If an existing action group already sends Azure Monitor alerts to ServiceNow ITOM through a secure webhook, you can use that same action group for issues.
Assign the action group to the Azure Monitor Workspace. Configure the action group as a default action group on the workspace where Azure Monitor issues are stored. Azure Monitor then triggers it when an issue is created or updated.
Configure both ServiceNow connectors. Use an Azure Monitor push connector to receive issues and alerts. Configure a pull connector to fetch related alerts and resources. Enable bidirectional sync on the pull connector so ServiceNow can update Azure Monitor when incidents or alerts close.
Validate creation and context. Create a test issue and confirm that the ITOM alert, ticketing incident, related alerts and resources, and Azure Monitor issue link appear.
Validate status synchronization. Close a test ServiceNow incident and alert, then confirm that the corresponding Azure Monitor statuses change.

For detailed secure webhook prerequisites and ServiceNow configuration, refer to Connect ServiceNow to Azure Monitor.

Keep both systems current during response

Creating the incident is only the start of the workflow. During an active response, an issue can change severity or status, related alerts can be resolved, and the ServiceNow incident can move through assignment and closure.

With bidirectional sync enabled, the integration keeps those lifecycle changes connected:

Changes to the Azure Monitor issue are reflected in the corresponding ServiceNow records.
Related Azure Monitor alerts and resources are represented in ServiceNow.
When a ServiceNow incident is resolved or closed, the corresponding Azure Monitor issue status is updated.
When related ServiceNow alerts change status, their Azure Monitor equivalents are updated.

This model lets monitoring teams continue using Azure Monitor for issue context and investigation. Service management teams can continue using ServiceNow for assignment, escalation, and incident governance. Each team works in its primary system while the integration reduces duplicate updates and status drift.

The integration does not replace the broader issue-actions model. It adds a ServiceNow-specific path alongside the webhooks, Logic Apps, Azure Functions, and other actions you can already use to connect Azure Monitor issues to operational workflows.

Next steps

Review Azure Monitor issues and issue actions to understand what an issue contains and when actions run.
Follow Connect ServiceNow to Azure Monitor for secure webhook prerequisites and ServiceNow connection guidance.
Follow Azure Monitor issue integration in the ServiceNow documentation to configure the ServiceNow side of the integration by using a pull connector.

We'd love your feedback

The Observability Agent continues to evolve based on real-world usage and operator feedback. Share your thoughts directly through the Give Feedback option in the experience, or reach us at azureobsagent@microsoft.com.

How to Fix Windows 11 Not Responding

JohnNaguib — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 11:47:08 GMT

ew things are more frustrating than sitting in front of your computer, clicking an app, and getting absolutely nothing in return. Your mouse may still move, but programs freeze, windows stop opening, or the entire desktop becomes sluggish. If Windows 11 is not responding, it can be difficult to know whether you should wait, restart, or start troubleshooting.

Link to the post

Closing the SQL Data Sync Monitoring Gap: Building Proactive Alerts with Azure Logic Apps

Karunakar_Kotha — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 02:39:23 GMT

Introduction

One of the most common lessons we've learned while working with customers running distributed applications is that data synchronization failures rarely happen suddenly.

Most synchronization issues leave breadcrumbs long before a full outage occurs. A warning here.

A failed row there. A transient connectivity issue that appears harmless today but becomes tomorrow's production incident.

For organizations still leveraging Azure SQL Data Sync, there is an important operational challenge:

SQL Data Sync does not expose synchronization health as an Azure Monitor metric.

This means teams cannot simply create an Azure Monitor alert rule and be notified when synchronization health begins to degrade.

Recently, while working in my own Azure lab environment, We explored a practical way to close this observability gap. The goal was simple:

Detect Data Sync warnings and errors early and automatically notify operations teams before synchronization failures impact business applications.

The result was a lightweight, serverless monitoring solution built entirely with Azure Logic Apps and Managed Identity, requiring minimal operational overhead.

The Hidden Monitoring Challenge

Many Azure services integrate seamlessly with Azure Monitor and emit metrics that can be used for alerting, dashboards, and incident management.

SQL Data Sync is different.

Although synchronization activity is recorded, the health information resides within the Sync Group Logs API, rather than being surfaced directly as alertable Azure Monitor metrics.

As a result:

Errors can go unnoticed until synchronization stops completely.
Warning events may be ignored because they're not visible in operational dashboards.
Support teams often learn about issues only after a downstream application reports stale or inconsistent data.

What's particularly concerning is that:

Row-level warnings frequently appear well before a hard synchronization failure.

These warning entries can serve as valuable leading indicators, giving operations teams time to investigate before users experience impact.

Building a Proactive Monitoring Approach

To address this challenge, I built a lightweight monitoring workflow using Azure Logic Apps.

Instead of waiting for failures to be reported, the Logic App proactively queries the Sync Group Logs API every 15 minutes and looks for:

Error events
Warning events

If any matching entries are found, an email notification is automatically sent to the designated operational contact or on-call distribution list.

High-Level Architecture

This design is:

Serverless
Low cost
Simple to deploy
Secure through Managed Identity
Easily customizable

Solution Architecture Walkthrough
Step 1: Scheduled Monitoring
The Logic App runs every 15 minutes.To avoid missing events that occur between execution intervals, the solution queries the previous 20 minutes of logs.

Why a 20-Minute Lookback on a 15-Minute Schedule?
Every 15 Minutes ▼ Query Last 20 Minutes ▼ 5-Minute Overlap ▼

Key Benefit:
The 20-minute lookback intentionally overlaps the 15-minute execution schedule, ensuring that warning and error events are not missed due to execution delays, transient platform issues, or timing gaps between runs. This design improves monitoring reliability and early issue detection

Step 2: Managed Identity Authentication

Security was a key design principle.

Rather than storing credentials, secrets, or service principal passwords, the Logic App uses a system-assigned managed identity.

The managed identity is granted the SQL DB Contributor role on the Hub SQL Server.

Benefits include:

- No credential management
- Automatic token acquisition
- Improved security posture
- Native Azure RBAC integration

Step 3: Querying the Sync Group Logs API

The Logic App executes an HTTP GET request against the SQL Data Sync Logs endpoint.

Example endpoint:

https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<subscriptionId>/resourceGroups/<resourceGroup>/providers/Microsoft.Sql/servers/<HubServer>/databases/<HubDatabase>/syncGroups/<SyncGroup>/logs?api-version=2020-11-01-preview&startTime=<startUtc>&endTime=<endUtc>&type=All

The request is authenticated using Managed Identity against the Azure Resource Manager endpoint.

Step 4: Parsing the Response

The API returns log entries as a JSON array.

Important fields include:

Field	Description
timestamp	When the event occurred
type	Error, Warning, or informational event
source	Component generating the event
details	Detailed event information
tracingId	Correlation identifier
operationStatus	Result of the operation

After parsing the response, each field becomes available for workflow processing.

Step 5: Filter and Prioritize Actionable Events

Not every log entry warrants operational attention. To reduce noise and focus on meaningful health signals, the workflow filters events to retain only those classified as Error or Warning.

A Filter Array action is used to evaluate each log entry and keep only actionable events:

By filtering out informational and non-critical messages, operations teams can focus on events that may indicate synchronization issues, service degradation, or potential failures requiring investigation.

Or( equals(item()?['type'], 'Error'), equals(item()?['type'], 'Warning') )

Step 6: Notify Operations Teams

After filtering, the workflow determines whether any actionable events were identified.

Condition:

length(body('Filter_array')) > 0

When one or more warning or error events are detected, the Logic App automatically generates an email notification to the designated operations or support team.

The alert includes key diagnostic information such as:

Event details
Warning or error classification
Tracing ID
Timestamp information

Example Subject

SQL Data Sync Alert: MySyncGroup - 3 Warning/Error Events Detected

Example Notification

Type: Warning Timestamp: 2026-07-28T12:15:00Z Details: Failed row synchronization detected Tracing ID: abc123xyz

Providing this information upfront enables engineers to begin troubleshooting immediately, reducing the time required to identify and remediate synchronization issues.

Why This Matters

In many organizations, data synchronization is a business-critical workload. Consider scenarios such as:

Application databases synchronizing across multiple regions
Distributed retail platforms
Financial transaction processing systems
Operational reporting environments
Legacy SQL Data Sync deployments supporting core business processes

In these environments, early detection can significantly reduce operational risk. The difference between investigating a warning today and responding to a synchronization failure tomorrow may be the difference between a routine operational activity and a customer-impacting incident.

Key Benefits of the Solution

Improved Visibility:
Surfaces health signals that would otherwise remain hidden within SQL Data Sync logs, providing operations teams with greater insight into synchronization activity.
Early Detection
Identifies warning conditions and row-level synchronization issues before they escalate into service-impacting failures.
Security-First Architecture
Leverages Managed Identity for authentication, eliminating the need to store or manage credentials.
Cost Efficiency
Built on the Azure Logic Apps Consumption Plan, keeping operational costs low while delivering continuous monitoring capabilities.
Operational Simplicity
Requires no custom services, virtual machines, or ongoing infrastructure maintenance, making deployment and management straightforward.

Recommendations and Operational Best Practices

Based on testing and operational experience, consider the following best practices:

Treat Warnings as Actionable Signals

Many organizations focus exclusively on errors; however, warnings often provide the earliest indication of synchronization degradation. Investigating warning events proactively can help prevent future outages and service disruptions.

Maintain an Up-to-Date On-Call Distribution List

Ensure alerts are delivered to the appropriate responders. An outdated distribution list can be just as ineffective as having no alerting mechanism in place.

Use Overlapping Monitoring Windows

Always query a slightly larger time interval than the Logic App execution schedule. This approach helps prevent missed events caused by execution delays, scheduling drift, or transient service interruptions.

Review Trends Regularly

Even when warnings do not immediately impact synchronization, recurring patterns may reveal underlying issues such as:

Connectivity challenges
Schema inconsistencies
Permission and access problems
Data quality concerns

Periodic trend analysis can help teams identify and address systemic issues before they affect business operations.

Conclusion

Although Azure SQL Data Sync does not currently expose native Azure Monitor metrics for synchronization health, organizations are not limited to reactive monitoring approaches.

By combining:

Azure Logic Apps
Managed Identity
SQL Data Sync Logs API
Automated Email Notifications

organizations can implement a lightweight yet powerful monitoring solution that surfaces hidden warning and error signals before they evolve into production incidents.

In modern cloud operations, resilience is not defined solely by how quickly teams respond to failures. It is equally determined by their ability to identify weak signals early and take proactive action before customers are impacted.

This Logic App-based approach demonstrates how a relatively small amount of automation can significantly improve operational visibility, accelerate issue detection, and reduce the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) for Azure SQL Data Sync environments.

Building Microsoft Sentinel Connectors in Minutes with the Sentinel Connector Builder Agent

Robert_Moriarty — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:14:45 GMT

Overview

We previously announced the public preview of the Microsoft Sentinel connector builder agent via VS code extension, that helps developers build Microsoft Sentinel codeless connectors faster with low-code and AI-assisted prompts. This post walks through a hands-on lab using a mock Network Log API to demonstrate how the Sentinel connector builder agent simplifies building Codeless Connector Framework (CCF) pull connectors. Instead of manually creating ingestion infrastructure and configuration files, you’ll use a guided, conversational workflow in VS Code to generate connector artifacts, test them against a live API, and deploy them into Microsoft Sentinel. The lab focuses on the end-to-end experience ranging from API setup to validated connector deployment so you can see how quickly a working integration can be produced. For additional guidance beyond this lab, refer to our MS Learn documentation.

The Lab Environment

This lab is built around a mock Network Log API hosted as an Azure Function App. The purpose of the lab environment is to give us a live API that we can use to build, validate, and test the Sentinel CCF connector builder agent against end to end. The API exposes 50 synthetic network activity records that look and behave like a real product data source, including web traffic, DNS requests, blocked remote access attempts, malware command-and-control blocks, VPN activity, and other common network events. That makes it a useful stand-in for the type of telemetry many teams want to onboard into Microsoft Sentinel.

The API is intentionally shaped like the kind of source a customer might expose for telemetry retrieval. It uses API key authentication through the X-API-Key header, returns paginated results through a nextLink model, and provides a predictable response structure that the builder agent can map into a pull connector configuration.

The repo contains everything needed for the walkthrough. There is an ARM template to deploy the Function App, reference documentation for the API, and a sample connector package showing the generated polling config, table schema, DCR, and connector definition. The end goal of the lab is straightforward: use the builder agent to generate a CCF pull connector that ingests this API into the custom NetworkLogAPIGetNetworkLogs_CL table in Sentinel.

Follow the full walkthrough here: Building Microsoft Sentinel Connectors in Minutes with the Sentinel Connector Builder Agent

Original Publication: Microsoft Sentinel Blog, August 11th, 2026

Accelerate connectors development using AI agent in Microsoft Sentinel

NikitaChhabra — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:17:17 GMT

Today, we’re excited to announce the public preview of a Sentinel connector builder agent, via VS code extension, that helps developers build Microsoft Sentinel codeless connectors faster with low-code and AI-assisted prompts. This new capability brings guided workflows directly into the tooling developers already use, helping accelerate time to value as the Sentinel ecosystem continues to grow. Learn more at Create custom connectors using Sentinel connector AI agent

Why this matters

As the Microsoft Sentinel ecosystem continues to expand, developers are increasingly tasked with delivering high‑quality, production‑ready connectors at a faster pace, often while working across different cloud platforms and development environments. Building these integrations involves coordinating schemas, configuration artifacts, Azure deployment concepts, and validation steps that provide flexibility and control, but can span multiple tools and workflows. As connector development scales across more partners and scenarios, there is a clear opportunity to better integrate these capabilities into the developer environments teams already rely on.

The new Sentinel connector builder agent, using GitHub Copilot in the Sentinel VS code extension, brings more of the connector development lifecycle -- authoring, validation, testing, and deployment into a single, cohesive workflow. By consolidating these common steps, it helps developers move more easily from design to validation and deployment without disrupting established processes.

Read the full announcement here: Accelerate connectors development using AI agent in Microsoft Sentinel

Original Publication: Microsoft Security Community Blog, March 30th, 2026

Introducing Microsoft's newest India datacenter | Mondays at Microsoft (Episode 84)

Aaron_Bode — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 21:01:28 GMT

Stay connected with the latest from Microsoft, AI, security, and the global tech community in this week's episode of Mondays at Microsoft. Join Jonathan Jones and Josh Leporati as they break down the biggest announcements, product updates, cybersecurity insights, and community news shaping the Microsoft ecosystem.

This week, we explore Microsoft's newest investments in AI and cloud infrastructure, including the launch of the India South Central datacenter region and the introduction of MAI-Thinking-1, Microsoft's latest advanced reasoning model. We also examine emerging cybersecurity threats, practical AI agent development, and the newest Microsoft 365 Copilot innovations designed to transform productivity.

#MondaysAtMicrosoft

Empower Real-Time Security with Microsoft Sentinel’s CCF Push Feature

Krishna_Sagar_B_V — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 20:58:01 GMT

In today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape, organizations need security solutions that deliver actionable insights in real time, not minutes or hours after the fact. Microsoft Sentinel continues to expand its capabilities, driven by a commitment to empower customers and partners with cutting-edge tools for proactive defense. Today, we are excited to announce the public preview of our latest innovation, the Sentinel Codeless Connector Framework (CCF) Push feature. CCF Push addresses a critical need: enabling seamless, automated, and immediate delivery of security data to Sentinel, so teams can respond to threats as they happen.

What Is CCF Push and Why Does It Matter?

Microsoft Sentinel connectors generally follow two patterns. In the polling pattern, partners and customers expose their web‑facing REST API endpoints and use our traditional CCF connectors to poll those endpoints at intervals to gather data for ingestion into Sentinel. In the push pattern, partners and customers send data directly to a Sentinel workspace. Our new CCF Push capability was built to streamline and accelerate time to adoption for this second pattern.

Read the full announcement here: Empower Real-Time Security with Microsoft Sentinel’s CCF Push Feature

Original Publication: Microsoft Sentinel Blog, February 12th, 2026

Advancing print readiness across the Windows on Arm ecosystem

Phani_Krishna_Maringanti — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 20:44:35 GMT

Momentum across the Windows on Arm ecosystem continues to build as more commercial and retail customers adopt Arm-based Windows devices for everyday work. Customers are realizing tangible benefits such as improved performance per watt, longer battery life, quieter devices, and more consistent responsiveness across native Arm64 application workflows. As adoption grows, however, success depends not only on application availability, but on the readiness of foundational systems that customers rely on regardless of device or architecture. Printing, deeply embedded in business operations, remains one of the critical workflows that must keep pace.

Microsoft’s Modern Print Strategy provides an important foundation for this transition, modernizing printing on Windows through standardized protocols, inbox class drivers, and extensible Print Support Apps. This approach aligns closely with the needs of Windows on Arm by reducing complexity and enabling consistent, secure printing across architectures. At the same time, Microsoft recognizes that many commercial customers depend on established print workflows, and that hardware partners continue to support these needs through universal and native print drivers. Together, these models enable both software developers and hardware partners to extend reliable print solutions to Windows on Arm, consistently and reliably.

Below is a snapshot of print companies that have recently delivered or expanded solutions supporting Windows on Arm, demonstrating how the modern print ecosystem is evolving to meet customer expectations as Windows devices and the workloads they power continue to modernize ...

Read the full announcement here: Advancing print readiness across the Windows on Arm ecosystem

Original Publication: Microsoft Windows IT Pro Blog, May 6th, 2026

July 2026 Recap: Azure Database for PostgreSQL

karlaescobar — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 18:53:52 GMT

Features
Azure PostgreSQL Learning Bytes
- Take Control of PostgreSQL Maintenance

Features

PgBouncer: Update to 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭.𝟮𝟱.𝟮

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server now supports PgBouncer 1.25.2, keeping the built-in connection pooler aligned with the latest community release. PgBouncer helps applications efficiently manage large numbers of idle and short-lived connections with low overhead.

This update includes the latest community security and stability fixes, including fixes for multiple CVEs affecting network packet parsing, SCRAM authentication, error handling, and admin command authorization - strengthening the reliability and security of the managed connection pooling experience.

Documentation: PgBouncer in Azure Database for PostgreSQL

Maintenance Events: Programmatic control through Rest APIs and Azure CLI

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server now supports new Maintenance Events REST APIs and Azure CLI commands, giving you more ways to programmatically view and manage planned maintenance.

You can view upcoming maintenance, review maintenance history, reschedule eligible maintenance for up to 14 days, and apply maintenance on demand through REST APIs and Azure CLI. These capabilities make it easier to into automation integrate maintenance management, scripts, internal tooling, and operational workflows.

The REST APIs are available starting with the 2026-04-01-preview API version, while the same maintenance capabilities are available in Azure CLI version 2.88.0 and later.

Documentation: Maintenance Events REST API

Documentation: Azure CLI Maintenance Event Commands

India South Central now generally available

We’re excited to announce that Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server is now generally available in the India South Central region. You can now build and run production-ready cloud applications closer to your users, with the flexibility and control of a fully managed PostgreSQL service.

Expanding PostgreSQL Extensibility with pgPointCloud, RDKit, and plpgsql_check

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server now supports three additional PostgreSQL extensions, expanding the range of specialized workloads you can run on a fully managed PostgreSQL service.

pgPointCloud: Enables you to store, compress, and query large-scale LiDAR and 3D point-cloud data directly in PostgreSQL, supporting spatial workloads across areas such as geospatial analytics, autonomous systems, agriculture, research, and other data-intensive scenarios.
RDKit: Brings cheminformatics capabilities to PostgreSQL, helping pharmaceutical, chemical, and research teams work with molecular data, fingerprints, similarity searches, and indexing support.
plpgsql_check: Helps developers validate PL/pgSQL code and improve code quality, especially for teams modernizing database applications or migrating procedural SQL workloads to Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server.

Together, these extensions make it easier to bring advanced data types, domain-specific analytics, and developer tooling closer to your PostgreSQL applications on Azure.

See the full list of all available extensions in Azure Database for PostgreSQL in our learn documentation.

Azure PostgreSQL Learning Bytes

Take Control of PostgreSQL Maintenance

Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server now gives you more control over planned maintenance events. With self-service maintenance controls in the Azure portal, you can view upcoming maintenance, reschedule eligible maintenance to a more convenient time, apply updates when you're ready, and review maintenance history after completion. These capabilities help reduce operational risk and make it easier to align maintenance with your business schedule.

Whether you're managing production workloads, preparing for a major release, or avoiding peak business periods, these controls provide greater flexibility and visibility so you can plan maintenance with confidence.

Learn more: Read the full blog post, Take Control of Your PostgreSQL Maintenance, for details on the maintenance experience and how to use it.