About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

Microsoft on Wednesday announced plans to end the online Microsoft Store for Business and Microsoft Store for Education in the "first quarter of 2023," per a Microsoft document on the topic.

These stores are different from the commercial Microsoft Store online application repository, which is currently undergoing a revamp. Microsoft Store for Business and the Microsoft Store for Education are used by businesses and schools to distribute applications to end users. Those applications might include private line-of-business apps or public apps that were customized by an independent software vendor.

The Shift to Windows Package Manager
Instead of using the Microsoft Store for Business and Microsoft Store for Education application repositories, Microsoft wants organizations to shift to using the Windows Package Manager and Microsoft Intune, or another "unified endpoint management (UEM) solution," to get their apps.

Windows Package Manager is a command-line tool, released as version 1.0 in May. It's used to install apps by sending text commands, either via the PowerShell console or a Windows Package Manager Client terminal. Windows Package Manager fetches apps that are housed in the Microsoft community repository.

Back in May, Microsoft had explained that Windows Package Manager, which is Microsoft's first "native" application installer, wasn't replacing the "Windows Store" (the old name for the Microsoft Store). It's not a store replacement because Windows Package Manager just has a text interface and doesn't have the ability to show marketing information.

Microsoft's Wednesday announcement indicated that it'll be possible for organizations to use the Microsoft Store for Business and the Microsoft Store for Education to get "free apps" until the 2023 end date. Microsoft had already killed off the use of those stores to get apps that need to be purchased, which happened back in April.

"Starting April 14, 2021, all apps that charge a base price above free will no longer be available to buy in the Microsoft Store for Business and Education," Microsoft's document had explained. The document added that apps already purchased will continue to run, but additionally licensing can't be bought.

Microsoft's plans to scrap these stores aren't wholly a surprise as they were described about a year and a half ago by veteran Microsoft reporter Mary Jo Foley.

Windows Package Manager Integration Milestones
Microsoft wants users of the Microsoft Store for Business and the Microsoft Store for Education to shift to using the Windows Package Manager tool, which will be integrated with Microsoft Intune or another UEM.

Currently, the integration work is still a work in progress for Microsoft. The announcement described the following "milestones" to that end:

• Windows Package Manager v1.0: generally available
• Intune integration with Windows Package Manager service, your private app repository, and the new Microsoft Store: Public Preview (Expected H1 2022)
• Intune integration with Windows Package Manager service, your private app repository, and the new Microsoft Store: General availability (Expected H2 2022)
• Retirement of Microsoft Store for Business and Education for Windows 10: expected Q1 2023

Microsoft's announcement included an FAQ section to clarify this rather confusing announcement. Essentially, the shift toward Windows Package Manager is just happening for users of free applications.

If organizations have installed Windows Store for Business or Windows Store for Education apps (free or paid), then those apps will continue to run "as long as the app is not removed from the device."

New Microsoft Store
Microsoft had described building a new Microsoft Store in this June 24 post. It will be arriving at some point for Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices. The new store isn't available for buying apps right now, but it's already described at this landing page.

The new Microsoft Store will have improvements to help users find applications. It'll be friendly to developers that offer their apps through install links on their Web sites. In such cases for Microsoft Store apps, a pop-up installer will appear when people click on the Web site link.

The new Microsoft Store will be capable of housing all types of applications, including the older Win32 (Windows 7-era) apps. Here's what it can hold, per the June 24 post:

Starting today, Windows developers can publish any kind of app, regardless of app framework and packaging technology -- such as Win32, .NET, UWP, Xamarin, Electron, React Native, Java and even Progressive Web Apps.

Microsoft also is giving developers a break if they use their own commerce platform to monetize their apps. In such cases, apps can be housed in the new Microsoft Store without any fee.

The new Microsoft Store is apparently at the preview stage right now. Its commercial-release timing wasn't described.

The lifecycle of a wireless network is the process of designing, validating, optimizing, and troubleshooting that network. Whether upgrading an existing wireless network or designing a greenfield network, you have to account for capacity requirements or potential interferences in the environment. Before you deploy your new or upgraded network infrastructure, you need to ensure you have real-world data to provide insight and insurance for your wireless project. We’ve discussed Wi-Fi site surveys in a couple of Webinar. However, not all site surveys are equal. There’s three common types of on-site surveys that can be performed.

Passive site surveys

Performed to get an understanding of the RF characteristics on-site. By RF characteristics I mean Wi-Fi signal strengths, noise levels, SNR (signal-to-noise ratio), and the like.  The reason the site surveys are called “passive” is that your Wi-Fi network adapter is pretty much just listening to packets when performing passive site surveys. OK, the NIC might send some probes out, but that’s about it.

Active Site Surveys

Provide more insight on the network connectivity and/or performance. Things like packet loss, packet delay, and access points you’ve associated with, can be measured during active site surveys. As the name suggests, with active surveys the Wi-Fi adapter is receiving AND sending packets to figure out what’s truly going on with the network.

What is an AP on a Stick survey?

An AP on a Stick (APoS) survey is a method of temporarily staging APs at deployment height utilizing a tripod or other mounting options in order to validate your predictive design before a full site deployment. APoS surveys identify the RF signal propagation characteristics of the environment while providing additional confidence your proposed design will work as planned, reducing the need for costly AP location changes, and validating you have the correct number of APs in your design.

Microsoft 365 helps protect your business against ransomware by preventing potentially dangerous files, like JavaScript, batch, and executables, from being opened in Outlook. To increase this level of protection by adding rules that block or warn you of additional types of files, follow these steps.

1. From the admin center at https://admin.microsoft.com, choose Exchange under Admin centers.

2. From the menu on the left, choose mail flow.

3. On the rules tab, choose the arrow next to the plus (+) symbol, and then choose Create a new rule.

4. On the new rule page, enter a name for your rule, scroll to the bottom, and then choose More options.

5. Under Apply this rule if, select Any attachment, and then select file extension includes these words.

6. In the box under specify words or phrases, enter the file extensions that you want the rule to be applied to, such as file extensions that can contain macros. Use the plus (+) symbol to add them one at a time.

   Learn more about file types by reading Protect against ransomware.

7. Scroll down to review your list, and then choose OK.

8. On the new rule page, choose add condition, and then choose a condition under Do the following.

   You have many rule options to choose from, but in this example we'll choose to Notify the recipient with a message.

9. Enter message text for your notification, and then chose OK.

10. Optional: On the new rule page, choose add exception, and enter any details for exceptions to your rule, such as messages from trusted senders.

11. On the new rule page, choose Save, and review the rule summary information provided.

BROCENT HRM manages the training program and certification for all nominated technicians. Only certified technicians are authorized to attend remote and/or onsite support activities. Such program covers for all technical team member including but not limited GSD Service Desk Team, TSC Second Line Support Team, FSS Onsite Support Team and so on.

When BROCENT is awarded by Customer, the onboard process is triggered with preset tasks, that is managed with the transition timeline and tasks by BROCENT transition service officer.

With the governance of service delivery model, BROCENT command center support (CCS) is in place that is comprised of GSD, TSC, TSO, SDM, HRM and AM. All nominated CCS members are with senior project and technical experience and good at bi-lingual communication. BROCENT TSO manages the check list and handover plan to make collection of all existing IT Operation Manual/Guide. This part presents the presumption of tasks in TT stage covering both office and store premise.

BROCENT HRM manages the training program and certification for all nominated technicians. Only certified technicians are authorized to attend remote and/or onsite support activities. Such program covers for all technical team member including but not limited GSD Service Desk Team, TSC Second Line Support Team, FSS Onsite Support Team and so on.