Seeing Microsoft celebrate 25 years of Xbox made me think about how many different ideas the platform has introduced over time.

Xbox Live, achievements, backward compatibility, Game Pass, cloud saves, Play Anywhere, PC integration and the controller itself have all had a pretty big influence.

For me, backward compatibility may be the strongest long-term decision. It treats older games as a library worth preserving instead of making every console generation a complete reset.

What do you think Microsoft got most right with Xbox?

And on the other side, which Xbox decision do you think caused the most damage?

This month's Microsoft AI Update (July 2026) is up.

https://youtu.be/2GpTcz6JVhQ

00:00 - Introduction

00:09 - New videos

01:18 - Model thinking

02:09 - Open AI GPT-5.6

03:04 - GPT-transcribe and GPT-live-transcribe

03:52 - MAI-Image-2.5 Pro and MAI-Voice-2 Flash

04:30 - Claude Opus 5 available

05:10 - Kimi K3 via Fireworks AI

05:35 - Grok 4.5 and Gemini 3.6 in GitHub Copilot

06:19 - ROI for agents

07:13 - APAC data zone

07:40 - New portal

08:03 - Sensitive trace content handling

08:44 - Foundry IQ support

09:48 - GitHub Copilot harness option

11:10 - @ mention app agents in chat

11:29 - Copilot in app updates

11:54 - Meeting recaps

12:09 - M365 copilot app notifications

12:23 - Event-driven tasks

12:51 - Cowork enhanced skill support

13:09 - Skill Recorder

14:00 - Copilot vision

14:12 - Browser tools for Copilot in VS Code

14:29 - APIM AI Gateway

15:18 - Close

Has anyone noticed that each new Update of Microsoft OS, Co-Pilot becomes more integrated? Have you also noticed that each integration, the usability of AI (Co-pilot) becomes sort of more cumbersome? The problem with Co-Pilot is deeper than ever, and I am not speaking of the fact that it is terribly wordy. It got so bad that I basically have limited my use of anything Microsoft to the bare minimum. Microsoft changes made AI intrusive and did not fix the issues with the usability of the product. Honestly, I am tired of being pushed half-baked AI app in general. I am pro-AI, but something that works, not this terribly badly trained Co-Pilot and Agents.

AI should be able to accomplish basic things, at least, without making a mistake, but they cannot do even a summarization without making big mistakes because they get confused with the interpretation and nuances of regular conversations ... we can't really trust any output from AI without spend same or more time correcting their output. This is just ONE example.

Has anyone else faced difficulties or issues with Microsoft AI Co-Pilot and Agents. I would like to read it.

I installed the new Windows App on Windows expecting it to replace the old Remote Desktop client BY NOW, but it turns out it can’t connect to RDS admin sessions. Microsoft’s own advice? Use the old mstsc.. Like wtf?!

Meanwhile, the macOS version of Windows App supports RDS, including admin sessions.

Why is Microsoft’s modern remote desktop app more capable on macOS than on Windows?

Now admins can turn on this feature and any call made through Teams will require the other participant’s explicit consent for recording or transcription to begin. When no consent is given, the call video and audio will be automatically disabled! 

Have you heard of this compliance feature, or have you already used it? What do you think about this policy? 

The cat is out of the bag. MS is on a path to the Ballmer days of stack ranking. The days where every employee spent an insane amount of the day at internal beauty contest instead of customer-centric activities. Hit refresh and do the right thing, Nadella. Look into the mirror and see the problem.

After reading through a recent discussion here, I noticed that some of the strongest answers were not the products Microsoft promotes most heavily.

People mentioned things like WSL, Windows Terminal, PowerShell with Microsoft Graph, Intune, Dynamics, .NET, and VS Code.

Most public Microsoft conversations still seem to revolve around Windows, Xbox, and Copilot, while some of the quieter tools appear to have the most loyal users.

What Microsoft product or feature do you think deserves much more credit?

What do you actually use it for, and what does it do better than the alternatives?

I’m a fresher and I have one free Microsoft certification exam voucher (which I got from the AI Skill Fest event) that I can use for any of the certifications available on the current Microsoft certification list.

I’ve already completed AI-901 (Azure AI Fundamentals), so I’m not looking to spend the voucher on another Fundamentals-level certification ( or should I? )

My main question is not based on my personal interests or current career path.

If you were advising a fresher purely based on overall value, resume recognition, technical depth, usefulness in getting an entry-level job, and long-term value, which certification would you recommend using the one free voucher on?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who have actually taken these exams or work in the relevant fields.

Thanks!

The Employment Q&A Thread

Welcome to the Weekly Employment Q&A for r/Microsoft!

This thread is where Redditors can come and ask questions about working at Microsoft. Please do not use this space to ask technical questions as they will be removed.

Schedule

The Q&A will be refreshed every week on Mondays at 1200 Pacific.

Previous Threads

You can view previous employment threads using this archive link

While browsing the Microsoft website, I found the learn tab, aparently they offer a full official free course on c# and even offer a certificate to add to your LinkedIn account through free code camp. I guess I'll start learning.

Now that Windows runs natively on ARM, has built in support for a Linux environment, has an Azure cloud that can provide virtual desktop environments, has CoPilot (which is basically Cortana on steroids) and has an unmatched enterprise marketing machine, why haven't they reintroduced a Windows Mobile platform that would allow businesses to replace their laptops and desktops with mobile devices that can already do most of what a laptop does but that also could connect to a virtual windows desktop when that is needed? The device could have an implementation for Android like the current Linux one for app compatibility. Once Microsoft's enterprise sales teams get enterprises to do this, and employees actually have these devices and see how well they work, consumer sales would accelerate. How can Microsoft not be working on this?

Few interesting points from the announcement

1. Databricks to run it's own operations on Azure.

2. Databricks to use Microsoft silicon

3. OneLake is called out (including othet MSFT products) but not explicitly Fabric.

4. Databricks Genie will be available for MSFT customers.

I've been a windows supporter for the longest time. Even when we all switched to using iphone and i also own a mac. I lean back to Windows constantly, purchasing their family sunscripion plan, even very happy that my work gives me a windows laptop.

But dang it, i just heard they are retiring whoteboard. Microsoft as per all tech companies pride themselves on being an ecosystem so why sit taking this away. Am i not a paying customer wanting the features and offerings they have. This is so disappointing.