WEEKLY BRIEFING · 29 DEC – 4 JAN 2026 · UTC
Full source inventory · public sources only
Week 1 sources
No new MSRC release that week. 5 roadmap changes, led by Microsoft 365 Copilot (2) and Purview (1). 3 lifecycle milestones fall in the next 30 days. 4 Azure updates, including 1 retirement.
5Roadmap changes across 4 products
Lifecycle milestones in the next 30 days3
- End of support · 3 products: Advanced Threat Analytics 1.X; Dynamics CRM 2016 (Dynamics 365); Visual Studio 2022 , Version 17.10 (LTSC channel) 13 Jan
Product news46
Defender · 20
- (Preview) Custom detection rules in Microsoft Defender now support Near Real-Time (NRT) configuration on Microsoft Sentinel data.1 Jan
- (Preview) In advanced hunting, if the query result exceeds the 64-MB size limit, the portal now returns the maximum number of records it can within this limit and displa…1 Jan
- (Preview) The BehaviorInfo and BehaviorEntities tables in advanced hunting now include additional columns and information about behavior data types and alerts from User…1 Jan
17 more
- Automatic Windows event auditing configuration for Defender for Identity sensors v3.x1 Jan
- Block communication from sender email address and domains in Teams1 Jan
- Defender for Endpoint Linux 101.25102.00051 Jan
- Defender for Endpoint macOS 101.25122.00061 Jan
- Defender for Endpoint macOS 101.25122.00071 Jan
- Expanding ZAP and Teams Admin quarantine to Plan 11 Jan
- Identity inventory enhancements are now generally available1 Jan
- Microsoft Defender Experts — Product Terms1 Jan
- Microsoft Security Private Link (Preview)1 Jan
- New Defender for Identity security alerts1 Jan
- New Entra ID user roles to support remediation actions1 Jan
- New Health Alert: Sensor v3.x RPC Audit Misconfigured1 Jan
- New security posture assessment: Identify service accounts in privileged groups1 Jan
- New security posture assessment: Locate accounts in built-in Operator Groups1 Jan
- New security posture assessments1 Jan
- Sensor updates1 Jan
- Workday connector updated to least-privilege permission model1 Jan
Microsoft Entra · 8
- General Availability - Ability to convert Source of Authority of synced on-premises AD users to cloud users is now available1 Jan
- General Availability - App-based branding via Branding themes in Entra External ID1 Jan
- General Availability - Client Credentials in Microsoft Entra External ID1 Jan
5 more
- General Availability - Entra Private Access for Domain Controllers1 Jan
- General Availability - Improved enforcement for All resources policies with resource exclusions1 Jan
- General Availability - Microsoft Entra ID Governance guest billing meter enforcement1 Jan
- General Availability - Service Principal creation audit logs for alerting & monitoring1 Jan
- General Availability - Session Control Conditional Access Policies in Entra External ID1 Jan
Sentinel · 5
- Enable UEBA directly from data connector configuration (Preview)1 Jan
- New detections for Sentinel solution for SAP BTP1 Jan
- New Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) widget in the Defender portal home page (Preview)1 Jan
2 more
Commercial changes · 3
- Audio Services — Product Terms1 Jan
- Microsoft 365 — Product Terms1 Jan
- Universal Terms for Online services — Product Terms1 Jan
Copilot Studio · 3
- (General availability) Use the Microsoft Copilot Studio extension for Microsoft Visual Studio Code to build, edit, and manage agents inside Microsoft Visual Studio Code,…1 Jan
- (Preview) Expand computer use capabilities with new model support, built‑in credentials, enhanced audit logging with session replay, and Cloud PC pooling—giving you grea…1 Jan
- (Preview) New enhancements to agent evaluations: Provide real‑time thumbs‑up/down feedback on evaluation results to verify grading performance and drive ongoing improvem…1 Jan
dbatools · 2
- dbatools 2.7.202 Jan
- dbatools 2.7.1929 Dec
Outlook · 2
- [FIXED] Unable to report meeting items as junk in classic Outlook1 Jan
- [WORKAROUND] Error opening encrypted emails from classic Outlook: "Configuring your computer for Information Rights Management"1 Jan
Azure Arc · 1
Azure Virtual Desktop · 1
Microsoft Graph · 1
Azure updates4
- Generally Available: Cloud-native apps on Kubernetes pricing calculator scenario31 Dec
- Generally Available: Geo-Replication for Azure Service Bus Premium31 Dec
- Generally Available: Azure Premium SSD v2 Disk is now available in Austria East and in a second Availability Zone in Japan West31 Dec
- Retirement: Deprecation of Custom Resource Providers29 Dec
From the community3
Microsoft 365 roadmap5
Microsoft 365 Copilot · 2
- Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Model Selector in Microsoft 365 Copilot31 Dec
- Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): [Copilot Extensibility] [1.02] Generate Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents from agents built in Microsoft 365 Copilot29 Dec
Purview · 1
Teams · 1
- Microsoft Teams: Join town halls and webinars as an attendee from Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android31 Dec
Viva · 1
Other public updates4
- Microsoft Purview DLM: Retirement of SharePoint online information management and in-place records management features3 Jan
- Dynamics 365 Contact Center - Debug issues in automatic assignment with enhanced logs1 Jan
- Dynamics 365 Contact Center - Debug routing issues with Application Insights dashboard1 Jan
- Microsoft Office for the web: Apply sensitivity labels with user-defined permissions29 Dec
Every line opens its detail page or the original Microsoft source. This briefing uses public sources only and says nothing about your tenant or devices.