Author Archives: Louise Ulrick

Windows 10 Cloud Enabled ESUs

Microsoft add Windows 10 ESU Cloud Managed licenses to the April 2025 Product Terms. As a reminder, these are aimed at organisations who are managing updates using Intune or Windows Autopatch and will be offered at a 25% discount from the regular ESUs. If you want a refresher on Windows lifecycle management, then this Windows IT Pro video is worth a watch: https://bit.ly/4jIyXFC.

Windows 11 QOS requirements licensing guidance

There’s an updated (March 2025) Windows 11 Qualifying Operating System requirements licensing guidance document from Microsoft. It’s an update to a November 2021 document and has a couple of new FAQs: one around the QOS requirements for the new Windows 365 Link device, and another around macOS devices.

Find this updated document here: https://bit.ly/42ufOkZ.

Microsoft Entra Permissions Management

In May 2024 Microsoft announced that Microsoft Entra Permissions Management (MEPM) capabilities were available to be enabled in Defender for Cloud as part of the paid-for Defender CSPM plan. The standalone MEPM product is now being retired – in April 2025 it’s removed from the Product Terms and not available for new EA and direct customers, and won’t be available for new CSP customers from 1 May, 2025. From 1 October 2025 the product will retire, and support will be discontinued.

You can find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3RvCcEq, and assurance that nothing will change in the Defender for Cloud experience here: https://bit.ly/42EWNvf.

Overage in Security Copilot

Microsoft announce the general availability of Security Compute Units that can be used as overage for Security Copilot. Customers provision the regular SCUs as usual but now, if they are exhausted in a particular hour, you can opt in to the consumption of overage SCUs. This can be either an unlimited amount or up to a maximum that you specify. Overage is then charged on a PAYG basis at a rate of $6 per hour compared to the regular price of $4 per hour.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4cFAry8, and information on managing SCUs here: https://bit.ly/4jsb8lY.

Power Platform Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (April 2025) Power Platform Licensing Guide. Microsoft introduced deep reasoning and Agent Flows in Copilot Studio in March 2025 (https://bit.ly/4jmTMH9) and the Licensing Guide is updated for those new innovations. When you implement these in your Agents you consume messages and now there’s a splendid table on page 19 which details the different types of activity and how many messages they consume. There’s also a reduction (from 30 to 10) in the number of messages required for answers grounded in the tenant graph.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4j4MMyq.

Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents

There are updated (April 2025) Microsoft 365 plan comparison documents with a row added for Copilot Chat, and also updated for Microsoft 365 Business Premium as an eligible prerequisite for Microsoft 365 E5 Security (see our blog: https://bit.ly/42JvfVu).

These useful documents tell you which of the (many) different components are included in which Office 365/Microsoft 365 plan, and there’s a table for SMB customers (https://bit.ly/4lRG14X), one for Enterprise customers (https://bit.ly/3YDt9Fl), and still more for specialist US Government customers – one for GCC (https://bit.ly/4cCaMqc), one for GCC High (https://bit.ly/4ihKc73) and the final one for DoD (https://bit.ly/4cEMJXN).

Windows 365 updates

Microsoft announce the general availability of three Windows 365 innovations – find the article here: https://bit.ly/4k3VcGv, and read on for the summary.

First, Windows 365 Link is now available. This is a purpose-built Cloud PC device that’s designed to connect to Windows 365 in a fast and secure way; you can find out more on our blog here: https://bit.ly/4jwyp6d.

Then there’s Windows 365 Frontline Shared Mode for when you want to provision a single Cloud PC which lots of people need to use for short periods on an ad hoc basis, perhaps for a specific task. Only one person can use the Cloud PC at a time, and you can find out more on our blog here: https://bit.ly/4cOpf2e.

And finally, there’s Windows 365 Disaster Recovery Plus, an Add-on licence for Windows 365 Enterprise for (of course) disaster recovery scenarios. Find out more about that on our blog here: https://bit.ly/42wcy8P.

Licence management for Dynamics 365 ERP apps

Microsoft announce changes to the management of licences for the Dynamics 365 ERP apps. From 30 April, 2025 there will be enhanced licence reporting available in the Power Platform Admin Center which will show licence usage across all security roles. Then, from 30 August, 2025 you’ll need to make sure that users have been assigned licenses through the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, or they will no longer have access to the Dynamics 365 ERP applications.

Find the announcement article here with tips on preparing for a smooth transition: https://bit.ly/446ehTx.

Copilot in Azure

Microsoft announce that Copilot in Azure is generally available, accessed from the Azure Management Portal and designed to help you answer questions, complete tasks, and discover and utilise Azure services. It was free in preview, and continues to be free now, although a customer’s excessive use of a Microsoft generative AI service may result in temporary throttling of their access to the service.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4lEXfCh.