Category Archives: Uncategorized

Modern Work Plan Comparison documents

The Modern Work Plan Comparison documents are updated for August 2026.

This month’s changes are mostly just housekeeping updates. The Priva Subject Rights Requests feature has been removed across the documents, following its retirement as a standalone license earlier in the year. The additional 50 GB mailbox storage in Exchange Online is now presented more clearly in the SMB document, and Defender for Office 365 Plan 1 now shows as included in Office 365 E3 as a result of the July 2026 licensing changes.

If you’re a subscriber, don’t forget that we help you navigate the (increasingly frequent) errors in these documents every month with our Cautionary Notes. You’ll find these using the one-click “Microsoft 365” filter in our subscriber-exclusive Licensing Guides Gallery, along with quick access to the documents and full change details: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery. If you’re not yet a subscriber, you’ll find the latest versions of the documents for Enterprise, SMB, Education, and US Government customers here: https://bit.ly/4hn2hS2. If you’re a partner and prefer the Excel version, contact us from your work email address and we’ll send it right over: info@licensingschool.co.uk.

Copilot Credits Guide

The Copilot Credits Guide first appeared in June, and since then there’s been a version (or two) of it every month to complement the Copilot Studio Licensing Guide.

The updates for August include details of harnesses and the three harness options available for Copilot Studio, and a rebranding of “Microsoft 365 Copilot” to “Microsoft Copilot”.

You can grab the latest (mid-month updated) guide here: https://bit.ly/3SEnnDG. Alternatively, if you’re a subscriber, use our Licensing Guides Gallery to peruse all versions of it. This splendid tool also helps you quickly get the full rundown of everything that’s new as well as any “Cautionary Notes”, along with filters to view both the Licensing Guide and Licensing Guidance website versions of this document.

Power Platform licensing resources

The Power Platform licensing resources are updated for August 2026.

The Licensing Guide features only minor changes this month, with the removal of a lone reference to Project for the web. The Licensing Deck has a rather more dramatic update, with complete sections on Copilot Studio removed in favour of a link pointing to the Microsoft Copilot Studio Licensing Guide for the relevant information.

The one-click “Power Platform” filter in our subscriber-exclusive Licensing Guides Gallery gives you quick access to every version of the licensing resources: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery. You’ll also find details of all the changes to be aware (and wary) of with our “What’s New” and “Cautionary Notes” labels. If you’re not yet a subscriber, grab a copy of the Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/4hgoAeu, and the Licensing Deck here: https://bit.ly/4wdWLY3.

End grace period for Windows 365 Business

When you unassign a Windows 365 Business license from a user their Cloud PC is moved into a 7-day grace period, after which time it’s deprovisioned. There’s now an option for administrators to end the grace period straight away which means that the Cloud PC is deleted immediately and the license can be reassigned to another user.

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

Copilot Pitch Decks

There are a couple of useful Pitch Decks released by Microsoft aimed at helping partners position Copilot solutions.

The main Copilot Pitch Deck includes details of Work IQ, Agents, Copilot Chat, and, of course, the latest innovations: Agent 365, Cowork, and Scout. The content contains handy comparison tables and some nice diagrams and explanations.

There’s also a Copilot Cost Management Pitch Deck which has details of spending policies and Copilot Credits purchasing options, as well as reporting and cost management tips.

If you’re a partner, grab a copy of the Copilot Pitch Deck here: https://bit.ly/4yqz2pF, and the Copilot Cost Management Pitch Deck here: https://bit.ly/4w7N0LE.

Changes to the Azure Reservation exchange policy

Back in October 2022 Microsoft announced that there would be changes to the exchange policy for Azure Reservations. That change has been postponed repeatedly until now.

At the end of July 2026 there was an announcement that from 1 February, 2027 Reservations purchased for any service supported by one of the Azure Savings Plans would no longer be eligible to be exchanged. If you’ve got an existing Reservation then you can exchange it one more time after 1 February, 2027.

Find the announcement with some useful examples here: https://bit.ly/3RtHaVX.  

Copilot Credits Guide

There’s a July version of the Copilot Credits Guide following its introduction to the world in June.

The main focus is a change to the estimated Copilot Credits consumed by Light, Medium, and Heavy Copilot Cowork tasks on page 7. Now, a Light task is estimated to consume at least 100 Copilot Credits (up from 70), and a Heavy task is anything over 700 (down from 1,500). The content of the Copilot Credits Guide is also available at a Licensing Guidance site, but note that this site isn’t yet updated for the changes in the Guide.

You can grab the guide here: https://bit.ly/4oYfnsN or, if you’re a subscriber, use our Licensing Guides Gallery. This is a splendid tool to help you quickly get the full rundown of everything that’s new in the Guide as well as any “Cautionary Notes”, along with filters to view both the Licensing Guides and Licensing Guidance site.

New Windows 365 Cloud PC options

Microsoft announce some new Cloud PC configurations for Windows 365 Enterprise and Flex.

Firstly, there are two new 32 vCPU sizes available with 128 GB of RAM and a choice of 1 or 2 TB of storage. This is a significant upgrade over the previous top-end configuration of 16 vCPUs with 64 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. Secondly, there’s a new GPU option available, called “Select” which is intended for applications optimised for multimedia. In the same announcement, Microsoft confirm that Windows 365 Flex now supports GPU-enabled Cloud PCs in Shared Mode.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4wdIify, and the full list of Cloud PC configurations here: https://bit.ly/4pqovqn.

Promotions everywhere!

Microsoft have announced promotion updates aplenty for July, with extended and brand-new offers.

The highlights include:

• Three existing Microsoft 365 promos with an extended end date of 30 September 2026
• Three new Copilot promos that expand the (eye-watering) number of AI offers
• Three newly added Windows 365 promos with discounts of 20-25%

Partners can download the Global Promo Readiness Guide for details of (most!) promotions: https://bit.ly/GLOMO. LicenseVerse subscribers can view ALL promotions in a single place, with our hugely-popular Promotions Playground. It provides quick search features, product and user filters, and toggles for new and changed promotions: https://bit.ly/PromotionsPlayground. If you’re not yet a subscriber and would benefit from this kind of resource, contact us today: info@licensingschool.co.uk.

Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition hotpatching

Microsoft have extended the hotpatching support date for Windows Server 2022 Datacenter: Azure Edition to October 2027.

Hotpatching lets you install updates faster and with less disruption by keeping your workloads running without a reboot. Whilst the end of Mainstream Support date of 13 October 2026 remains unchanged for the Azure Edition of Windows Server 2022 Datacenter, hotpatching support now extends a full year beyond that date.

Find out more about hotpatching here: https://bit.ly/4fdFVlg and view the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3T1vV7C.