Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 26-02-2025

We are making a change to the behavior of the EWSEnabled tenant-wide switch in Exchange Online.

[When this will happen:]

This change will rollout worldwide, starting April 1, 2025

[How this affects your organization:]

If you want to restrict the usage of EWS in your tenant, this change might affect you. The current behavior of the EWSEnabled flag is that it can be set at both the tenant (organization) level and the user (mailbox) level. Currently, when the flag is set to true at the user level, it takes precedence over the organization-level setting. If a setting is Null, it means the setting is not enforced at that level. If Org and user-level are both Null, the default behavior is to allow. This hierarchical structure means that if the organization-level flag is set to false, but the user-level flag is set to true, EWS requests from that user are still allowed. In summary:

This approach has led to situations where it can be challenging for administrators to ensure uniform policy enforcement across their organization, particularly in large and complex environments.

New Behavior

To address these issues, we are altering the behavior so that EWS will only be allowed if both the organization-level and user-level EWSEnabled flags are true. Here’s a simplified view of the new logic:

In short, EWS will be permitted only if both the organization and user-level allow it. This change ensures that administrators have better control over EWS access and can enforce policies more consistently across their entire organization

[Next Steps:]

Please check the blog for additional information and ensure your per-user and tenant wide settings are correct before this change is made to your tenant.

•  The way to control EWS usage in Exchange Online is changing 

Coming soon to the Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat: We will update the Copilot Chat input box with a consistent design. This rollout has no functionality changes.

A Microsoft 365 Copilot license or a Microsoft 365 license is required to use this feature.

This message applies to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat on the web and the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 478654.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early March 2025 and expect to complete by mid-March 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: The Web and Work tabs have different input box designs. This is the Web tab design:

Before this rollout: This is the Work tab design:

After this rollout: The Web and Work tabs will have the same input box designs that include all the functionality from before the rollout:

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

IT Administrators can now monitor the health of Microsoft Teams desktop clients for Windows and Mac through the new ‘Teams client health’ page in the Teams admin center.

• This page provides actionable insights into client health metrics, such as crashes, launch failures, and update failures. It also enables better monitoring of Teams client version adoption and updates.
• Administrators have detailed data on top issues, insights, and tools to quickly address client health problems.
• Administrators can monitor version adoption, version health, and get granular details about devices and users with the latest client versions.
• Administrators can see the recency of client versions and proactively address issues that prevent automatic updates to the most secure Teams client version.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 478610.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late March 2025 and expect to complete by late April 2025. 

General Availability (GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out late April 2025 and expect to complete by late May 2025. 

[How this will affect your organization:]

When these capabilities and tools are released in Teams admin center, administrators will be able to access the ‘Teams client health’ page via the left navigation and be able to proactively monitor Teams client health and Issues impacting end users in their tenant as well as find actionable guidance on how to troubleshoot and resolve these user-impacting issues.

Administrators will also be able to proactively monitor which devices and users might be using outdated versions of the Teams client to be able to move them to the latest and most secure version

Additionally, this information can also be sorted, filtered, and exported to a .csv for further analysis and troubleshooting. 

This will be only accessible to limited admin roles: Teams Administrator, Teams Communication Administrator, and Teams Communications Support Engineer.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required.

Ensure you and the required users have access to the above-mentioned roles or request to enable this new feature for more roles.
For more information, refer to our documentation:

• The Teams client health dashboard in the Teams admin center.
• Update monitoring in the Teams admin center.

This message applies only to new Outlook for Windows and has no impact on classic Outlook for Windows.

This is a reminder for administrators to review the policies your organization has configured to manage new Microsoft Outlook for Windows. The new article Map classic Outlook policies to new Outlook explains how key policies you may be using to control classic Outlook will map to new Outlook. We encourage admins to read the article and make the necessary policy updates in new Outlook for Windows to achieve their desired behavior.

Administrators should make sure to review the policies available to control whether mailboxes outside of your Microsoft 365 tenant can be connected to new Outlook for Windows. If you want to restrict the kinds of email accounts that can be connected to new Outlook, you should ensure you have configured these policies:

1. Set the policy to require that new Outlook must use a managed device’s Windows signed-in account as the primary account. Learn more:

• Automatically configure account based on Active Directory Primary SMTP address
• MC800501 (Updated) New Microsoft Outlook for Windows: Automatically configure accounts with new policy (published June 2024, updated August 2024)

Note: Setting the policy in #1 is required to ensure that new Outlook connects to the work or school account configured with the organization’s set of policies. If you do not set this policy, a user who has not already signed into new Outlook with their work or school account will be able to connect using a personal mailbox (such as Outlook.com, Gmail, IMAP) before signing in with their work or school account.

2. Set the PersonalAccountsEnabled policy on your organization’s mailbox to control whether personal mailboxes can also be connected to new Outlook. Learn more: Allow only corporate mailboxes to be added

3. Set the AllowedOrganizationAccountDomains policy on your organization’s mailbox to control whether work or school mailboxes on a different SMTP domain can also be connected to new Outlook. Learn more: Allow only corporate mailboxes to be added

Note: To prevent your organization’s mailboxes from connecting to new Outlook, along with any other mailbox, you must still set the policy in #1. Also, set the OneWinNativeOutlookEnabled policy to false. These two actions will prevent your organization’s mailboxes from signing into new Outlook and will also prevent users from selecting any other mailboxes to sign in. Learn more: Enable or disable access to the new Outlook for Windows | Microsoft Learn.

Learn more about managing policies in new Outlook: Policy Management – Microsoft 365 Apps | Microsoft Learn

Coming soon to Microsoft SharePoint Online: SharePoint and Global Admins will be able to use a Microsoft PowerShell cmdlet to review tenant-level usage data for the SharePoint agents trial.

After this rollout, the PowerShell cmdlet Get-SPOCopilotPromoUsage will show usage data for the SharePoint agents trial at the tenant level (total trial queries used, trial queries left, and trial queries available in tenant). This report will show historical data starting from January 2025 when the SharePoint agents trial started.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Production): The PowerShell cmdlet Get-SPOCopilotPromoUsage will be available starting March 1, 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Starting March 1, 2025, current SharePoint admins will need to download the 16.0.25813.12000 version of SharePoint PowerShell to access Get-SPOCopilotPromoUsage.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before or after the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your admins about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Learn more: Manage trial access to SharePoint agents with PowerShell – SharePoint in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

• You can now share files directly from a jump list on the taskbar. Jump lists appear when you right-click an app that has a jump list.
• This update makes Windows Spotlight easier to find. You’ll notice changes to the icon color and background.
• This update makes it easier to learn more about the image on your lock screen when you click the “Like” icon.
• You can now snooze or turn off the “Start backup” reminder in the File Explorer address bar.

• Windows 11, versions 23H2 and 22H2: KB5052094
• Windows 10, version 22H2: KB5052077

• You can now share files directly from a jump list on the taskbar. Jump lists appear when you right-click an app that has a jump list.
• This update makes Windows Spotlight easier to find. You’ll notice changes to the icon color and background.
• This update makes it easier to learn more about the image on your lock screen when you click the “Like” button.
• You can now snooze or turn off the “Start backup” reminder in the File Explorer address bar.

• Windows 11, version 24H2: KB5052093