Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Did you know that you can subscribe/unsubscribe to over 30 newsletters & email communications channels through your Microsoft account?

You may enroll through your consumer Microsoft Account (hotmail.com, outlook.com, live.com, msn.com, etc.) or your business Microsoft Entra/Microsoft 365 account from work. To do so, do the following:

1. Go to https://account.microsoft.com/profile/communications.
   This will ask for your email address and send your a verification link. This must be done each time you wish to change your communications preferences.
2. Check your email for a verification message from microsoft-noreply@microsoft.com.
   A unique account-specific link within the mail called “Manage communication permissions” will be there.
3. Click the “Manage communication permissions” link in the email.
   This will take you to the Account Profile Communications web page.
4. Select the newsletters or communications you’d like to receive.

Some of the newsletters I recommend as of 8/6/26 include:

• Microsoft Azure Promotional Content
• Microsoft Online Services – Promotional Offers
• Microsoft Dev News (US, XX)
• Microsoft Office Promotional Content
• Azure Product Updates and Announcements
• Microsoft Azure Newsletter
• Microsoft.Source Newsletter
• Microsoft Power BI Promotional Content
• Microsoft 365 Developer Newsletter
• Microsoft 365 Champion Program
• Microsoft Power BI Newsletter
• Visual Studio Customer Development
• Visual Studio Subscriptions Program Emails
• AI for government
• AI Digital Advisor
• Microsoft Reactor

I previously mentioned that Endjin produces 2 free newsletters, “Azure Weekly” and “Power BI Weekly” that are super useful in staying up to date with everything going on weekly with Azure & Power BI.

Now, they’ve recently begun publishing the “Fabric Weekly” newsletter.

Microsoft Fabric Weekly is a summary of the week’s top news to help you build on the Microsoft Fabric Platform. From AI to OneLake Shortcuts, it aims to keep you on top of the latest Fabric developments.

Subscribe to “Fabric Weekly” for free at:

• https://fabricweekly.info

(Note: Fabric Weekly is an independent newsletter not affiliated with Microsoft. Both newsletters are the creation of Endjin, a London-based Microsoft Solutions Partner that curates posts & content largely from the official Microsoft Azure blog & other sources but is not limited to Microsoft sources alone.)

A fun little Easter Egg: When you see “Mico”, the avatar from the consumer version of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence app “Copilot” (https://copilot.microsoft.com) while:

• logged into a Microsoft account (hotmail.com, outlook.com, live.com, msn.com, etc.)
• voice mode is active

…you can tap on Mico’s image rapidly about 12 times & it’ll turn into Clippy. 🤪

ALSO WORKS ON MOBILE
This also works on the consumer “Copilot Mobile app” as well if you turn on “voice mode”. Note that even if you have “voice mode” on, Mico needs to be displayed for this to work. If you don’t see Mico on the screen, click the “gear” icon to open the Setting for Copilot and turn on “Show Mico”. #clippysrevenge

NOT AVAILABLE FOR BUSINESS
This is exclusive to the consumer version of Copilot & does not work for “Microsoft 365 Copilot”, the business version of Copilot.

Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) licensed users in GCC will have access to Anthropic Claude models directly within the Microsoft 365 Copilot app & web app.

• Model choice — Claude Sonnet and Opus 5 become available alongside OpenAI models, so users can pick the best model for the task. (Claude is especially strong at deep reasoning and long-context analysis)
• Broad reach — availability spans Copilot experiences including Copilot Chat in GCC with Researcher & Microsoft 365 Apps availability is coming soon after.
• Enterprise-grade protection — Anthropic operates as a Microsoft subprocessor, covered under Microsoft’s Product Terms, Data Protection Addendum, and Enterprise Data Protection. The Microsoft Customer Copyright Commitment applies to covered products.
• No additional cost – “Model choice” is included for Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) users, allowing them to use OpenAI GPT & Anthropic Claude models (and any other models offered in the future) within Copilot Chat & M365 Apps at no additional cost.
  • Use of Anthropic Claude models for Copilot Chat within Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium) is not consumption-based & do not consume “tokens”.
  • Copilot Chat (Basic) are not eligible to use Anthropic Claude models.

What you need to do:

• This is an admin-controlled, opt-in setting. No end-user action is required, and existing data protections are unchanged.
• Your admin (with the AI Administrator role) can enable it in the Microsoft 365 admin center → Copilot → Settings → AI providers operating as Microsoft subprocessors.

Timeline:

• Beginning July 15, 2026, a new setting rolls out in the Microsoft 365 admin center that lets customers in GCC use Anthropic’s Claude models within Microsoft 365 Copilot.
• Beginning August 2026, Anthropic models will be available to end users.

For more information:

• Anthropic models in Microsoft Online Services | Microsoft Learn

Want to use Claude for coding? Stop changing your billing implementation & use your Github Copilot subscription to access any model including Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, GPT-5.4-Codex, Gemini 3.1 Pro. All are now available as coding agents for GitHub Copilot Business, GitHub Copilot Pro, GitHub Copilot Enterprise and GitHub Copilot Pro+ customers.

You can also run Claude, Codex, and Copilot directly inside github.com, GitHub Mobile, and VS Code, all within your existing GitHub workflows. Whether you’re reviewing code on the web, triaging issues on your phone, or iterating in the editor, you can stay within GitHub and use the same agents across surfaces with shared history and context. And most importantly:

No additional subscriptions are required.
Access to Claude and Codex is fully included with your existing GitHub Copilot subscription.

Read more at:
Claude and Codex now available for Copilot Business & Pro users – GitHub Changelog

For a quick review from Microsoft Build 2026, watch Tyler Leonhardt’s demo:

• LIVE168: Claude Is in Copilot. Here’s What That Actually Means
  Claude runs as a coding agent inside GitHub Copilot in VS Code. But what does that actually look like at the code level? How is context assembled? What tools does Claude have access to? What happens when you pick Claude in the model picker versus letting Copilot run? Tyler Leonhardt goes inside the integration so you know exactly what you are working with.
  http://aka.ms/githubcopilotclaude
  Third-party agents in Visual Studio Code

This week Microsoft 365 Archive was made available in the Microsoft 365 GCC cloud.

Microsoft 365 Archive is designed to help organizations manage their inactive data efficiently. It allows you to move inactive SharePoint sites into a cold storage tier, which reduces storage costs while maintaining the same searchability, security, and compliance standards as active data. This feature is already available in Production and is now being released to GCC-L cloud. (Roadmap 545013: SharePoint: Microsoft 365 Archive in GCC-L)

This is a follow on from the Microsoft 365 GCC Message Center message, MC1256304 (https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal/Home?ref=MessageCenter/:/messages/MC1256304) and the following is a copypasta of the Message Center message as of 7/14/2026:

(Updated) Microsoft 365 Archive coming to Government Community Cloud
MC1256304 · Published Mar 19, 2026 · Last updated Apr 24, 2026

Message Summary

Updated April 24, 2026: We have updated the timeline. Thank you for your patience. 

Introduction

Microsoft 365 Archive helps organizations reduce SharePoint Online storage costs by moving inactive SharePoint sites to a low-cost, long-term storage tier while keeping data within the Microsoft 365 compliance boundary.

Once archived, content is removed from active collaboration and Copilot experiences. This helps administrators focus on the most relevant data while maintaining compliance, retention, and discoverability.

With this release, Government Community Cloud (GCC) SharePoint administrators can manage site archiving directly from the SharePoint admin center using a pay-as-you-go billing model.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 545013.

When this will happen:

General Availability (GCC): Rollout will begin in mid-June 2026 (previously mid-April) and is expected to complete by end of June 2026 (previously late April).

How this affects your organization:

Who is affected:

• GCC tenants
• SharePoint administrators managing SharePoint Online storage

What will happen:

• Admins can archive inactive SharePoint sites to reduce storage consumption.
• Archived sites are removed from active collaboration and Copilot experiences.
• Admins can reactivate archived sites at any time when access is required.
• Archived content remains compliant with Microsoft 365 security, compliance, and eDiscovery capabilities.
• No changes are required to existing retention policies or legal holds.
• This feature is off by default and requires admin configuration, including pay-as-you-go billing setup.

What you can do to prepare:

If you want to start using Microsoft 365 Archive in your GCC tenant:

• Review your SharePoint Online storage usage and identify inactive sites.
• Set up pay-as-you-go billing and enable Microsoft 365 Archive in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
• Archive eligible SharePoint sites based on your organization’s site lifecycle requirements.
• Update internal documentation and inform helpdesk staff about site reactivation behavior.

Learn more:

• Set up pay-as-you-go billing
• Microsoft 365 Archive overview

Compliance considerations:

Area	Explanation
Does the change alter how existing customer data is stored or accessed?	Inactive SharePoint sites are moved to a long-term archive storage tier and removed from active collaboration experiences until reactivated.
Does the change modify, interrupt, or disable Purview capabilities?	Archived sites remain fully supported by eDiscovery, retention policies, legal holds, audit logging, and compliance features.
Does the change include an admin control?	Archiving and reactivation are admin-controlled through the SharePoint admin center and require pay-as-you-go billing to be enabled.

(courtesy of Mark Simos, Microsoft Lead Cybersecurity Architect)
The SAF documentation site and June 2026 MCRA just went live on Microsoft Learn! Check it out and let us know what you think! Note: This is the first release and we will be continuing to add to it. Send us your feedback, requests, and ideas.

• https://aka.ms/SAF

Microsoft just released 200+ pages of documentation for the Microsoft Security Adoption Framework (SAF) that includes and is built on the MCRA, CISO Workshop, and other SAF workshops.

SAF also ties together all of Microsoft’s historical guidance (SDL, IR playbooks, Immutable laws of security, etc.) into a single organized framework that guides your security modernization journey.

This is based on the workshops we deliver to Microsoft Unified customers (SecOps/SOC, Data Security, Infrastructure and Development, Access and Identity, and more).

When emailing out Outlook Meeting Invites to groups of people who don’t know each other, you may not want their email addresses exposed on the To: line of the Outlook invite to maintain the privacy of those you’ve invited – especially if the invitees are from different organizations.

Additionally, for Teams Meetings, you may want to hide the identities of the people that have joined so others can’t see their names or email addresses.

Both of these privacy-protecting features are available through Microsoft 365.

HIDE ATTENDEE LIST IN OUTLOOK MEETING INVITE

To “Hide Attendee List” for an Outlook Meeting Invite to protect customer privacy, you MUST first use “Outlook Web Access” or the “New Outlook”.

1. Create the Outlook meeting from the Outlook Web/New Outlook Calendar.  (Again, you cannot do this from “Classic Outlook”)
2. Turn on the “Teams Meeting” switch.
3. Enter in the attendee names in the Attendee field
4. Click the dropdown next to the Attendees field and select “Hide attendee list”

Now customers will only see their email address in the To: line when they receive the invite.

HIDE ATTENDEES NAMES DURING TEAMS MEETING
(Hide attendee names in Microsoft Teams meetings and webinars)

Before you SEND, you should also “Hide attendee names” in the actual Teams Meeting options for customer privacy during the meeting.

1. Go the Outlook meeting from the Calendar from “Outlook Web Access” or the “New Outlook”.
(You cannot do this from “Classic Outlook”)

2. Go to the Click the “Options” button for the Teams Meeting.

3. Under “Roles”, set “Who can present” to “Only organizers and co-organizers”

4. Under “Participation”, turn on “Hide attendee names”

Now customers will not see other attendee’s email addresses/identities. They will only see their own email address & the identities of the Presenters/Organizers.