From Windows, Microsoft Store to Azure, here are the main Microsoft Build 2022 announcements

Microsoft shared a host of announcements across all platforms during its flagship Microsoft Build 2022 event. Here are some key updates from the event.

Windows 11

The tech major has announced new app-building tools for developers. It has updated two tools to help developers use its WinUI 3 to build their apps: the Visual Studio Template Studio extension for WinUI (C#) and the open source NET Upgrade Assistant tool.

NET Upgrade Assistant will help developers automate the migration of .NET UWP apps to .NET 6, including updating from WinUI 2 to WinUI 3. For cross-platform app development, it has released a .NET Cross-Platform Application UI (.NET MAUI) 1.0 that will help developers build apps that can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows from a shared codebase

Updates have been added for a Progressive Web App, which will allow developers to distribute and install their site as an app. New features such as URL protocol handler registration and overlay window controls for custom title bars have also been enabled.

It also announced support for third-party widgets on Windows. Starting this year, developers will be able to create widgets as add-on experiences for their Win32 and PWA apps on Windows 11, powered by the Adaptive Cards platform.

He also announced an upcoming OneNote refresh with a visual overhaul.

“The new visual refresh extends to navigation panes and full-screen mode. The page list, section tabs, and notebook dropdown have all been visually updated,” he said in a blog post.

Microsoft Store

The Microsoft Store app marketplace has also been updated.

The waitlist program for Win32 apps in Microsoft Store has been removed, opening it up to all app developers. He also announced the launch of Microsoft Store Ads. It will soon pilot new development tools.

“Using Microsoft Advertising, developers will be able to create, run and display advertising campaigns in the Store, improving app discovery and conversion,” he said.

Besides, the Amazon Appstore preview on Windows 11 is currently available in the United States and will be extended to five other countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom from here. the end of the year.

Additionally, it introduced Windows Search for the store. Windows Insiders will soon be able to open Start, type the name of an app, view Microsoft Store search results, and install it directly from there.

It will also soon test a new App Restore feature that will allow customers to automatically restore their previously installed apps from the Microsoft Store to their new Windows device.

It also announced pop-up store and Microsoft Store badges to allow developers to promote apps on any website.

Volterra Project

Microsoft also announced Project Volterra, a new device powered by the Snapdragon Compute Platform.

“With Project Volterra, you will be able to explore many AI scenarios through the new Qualcomm Neural Processing SDK for Windows toolkit announced today by Qualcomm Technologies,” he said in a post.

It will also add support for NPUs in the end-to-end Windows platform.

Teams and Microsoft 365

He also announced new features for developers building collaborative apps for Teams and Microsoft 365.

This includes live sharing, which allows participants to co-watch, co-edit, and co-author, among other functions in Teams meetings. Developers can use new Teams SDK preview extensions to extend existing Teams apps and create live sharing experiences in meetings.

Developers will also be able to create Loop components, which are live, actionable units of productivity that stay in sync and move freely across Microsoft 365 apps, starting with Teams chat and Microsoft Outlook. Developers can turn an existing adaptive card into a loop component or create a new loop component based on an adaptive card.

The Microsoft Graph Chat APIs allow developers to integrate Teams chats into their apps, allowing their users to collaborate seamlessly without having to switch between apps. We’re introducing several new APIs in preview with features like enabling chats with federated users (like users outside your tenant), identifying read and unread messages by the current user, and subscribing to user discussions and membership changes.

The SharePoint Framework lets you create parts and pages in SharePoint sites, Teams apps, and more.

The new Teams SDK will allow developers to build apps for Teams, Outlook and Office using a single app and deployment model and build collaborative apps that use relevant features for each product.

Other announcements include in-app purchases for Teams apps, Teams app licensing, an app compliance automation tool for Microsoft 365, and improved app management and discovery.

Microsoft Development Box

He also announced the Microsoft Dev Box, a new cloud service that provides developers with secure, ready-to-code desktops for hybrid teams of all sizes.

The service is intended to give developers self-service access to preconfigured, ready-to-code cloud-based workstations for specific projects.

Microsoft Power Platform

He also announced the new Microsoft Power Platform product and its features across the platform.

Ads include Power Pages for building business websites, Power Apps Express Design for instantly turning images, documents, Figma design files and PowerPoints into apps and Power Virtual Agents, Azure Bot Framework for building bots conversational AI tools and Autoscale capability with hosted robotic process automation. (RPA) for easier scaling with Microsoft Power Automate.

It also announced Datamarts in Power BI to enable data self-sufficiency and the Power Automate pay-as-you-go plan and embedded software development kit (SDK) updates.

Azure

Microsoft Azure related announcements include the general availability of Azure Container Apps which will allow developers to run microservices and containerized applications on a serverless container platform.

Additionally, several key enhancements have been made to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to make the developer experience easier.

Azure Cosmos DB has introduced new features, including new burst capacity and elasticity features in preview. The Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance Business Critical tier is also now generally available.

It also introduced the new Azure Spring Apps Enterprise tier from Microsoft and VMware (GA).

Azure Spring Cloud is a fully managed service from Microsoft and VMware for running Spring applications at cloud scale, eliminating the need to worry about infrastructure, application lifecycle, monitoring, complexities of containers and Kubernetes. Microsoft is renaming the Azure Spring Apps service, to reflect the service’s expanded scope as a platform for all types of Spring apps.

Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform

He also unveiled Microsoft’s new intelligent data platform. The cloud data platform helps developers build applications that include advanced analytics and intelligence, with built-in governance for all data assets on a “trusted and integrated” platform.

Developers will be able to connect their data to the cloud with the platform.

He also announced new Azure SQL Database preview features, such as Azure Functions integration, JSON improvements, and a local development experience.

Its Azure Synapse Link for SQL, now in preview, is intended to enable near real-time analytics for SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Database.

Another preview platform is Microsoft Graph Data Connect, which allows customers to export their Microsoft 365 data estate. It is only available on Microsoft Azure.

Separately, Azure Machine Learning now offers a preview Responsible AI Dashboard.

Published on

May 25, 2022