Automate your desktop processes with Power Automate in Windows 10

[Ashvini Sharma]

With Power Automate Desktop anyone can harness powerful robotic process automation (RPA) capabilities on their desktop at no additional cost! In this session, learn how now it’s even easier to access and experience this exciting, easy-to-use initiative empowers anyone –coders to non-coders alike – to automate everyday business processes from their desktop, driving greater efficiencies that save valuable time and effort.

[Nathan Hartley]

Ever since UWP, MSIX and the Windows Store, everything from Microsoft should have migrated to using them. If there were problems that your team found with using them, those problems should be fixed, not avoided.

For those that do not know it…

UWP, Universal Windows Platform, is Microsoft's security and privacy focused API layer between an application and the operating system, which also adds OS level features for consistency between applications (permissions, live tiles, notification toasts, history cards, sharing options, etc). Essentially, Microsoft is backing into the same position Android has been in since its beginning, and iOS adopted before supporting 3rd party applications.

MSIX is Microsoft's latest installer technology. A traditional installer can do anything it wants, anyway that it wants to do it, using the provided credentials (System in the case of Intune/SCCM installs). Then through various means, it can keep this empowered position indefinitely. This has HUGE security, privacy, compatibility, reliability and manageability implications. MSIX solves these problems by providing a declarative installation mechanism that containerizes the resulting installation.

The Microsoft Store is more than a collection of applications, it makes even traditional/non-UWP applications safer and better for us. Applications in the Store must be MSIX packages (see benefits above). Though not perfect, Microsoft verifies application developers. Updates will automatically download in the background, through Delivery Optimization, and take affect when the user restarts the application. Application licenses can be managed through the store, centralizing licensing.

#ShouldBeUWP - Twitter Search

[MarkF26]

@Ashvini Sharma 

Thanks for the intro. Can you give an example of "Get User Info" ? 

what is expected syntax of "Parent Directory Entry" and "Distinguished Name" ?. I copied an entry from my Active Directory Services object but I keep getting the following error: 

Parameter 'Parent directory entry': Argument 'ParentDirectoryEntry' must be 'Active Directory entry'

[MarkF26]

@MarkF26 

I figured it out. The Get User Info prerequisite is to call "Connect to Server" which creates the "ParentDirectoryEntry" variable that is needed for "Get User Info"

[deadey]

@Ashvini Sharma