New Copilot Updates for Outlook Scheduling, Word Agent Mode, and PowerPoint Agent Mode

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Microsoft has announced Copilot enhancements across Outlook, Word, and PowerPoint that improve scheduling, document creation, and presentation building. Here is a summary of some of the features I think can come in handy. Be aware that timelines may change as deployments progress, some of these have already been pushed back a couple of months. All of the following features requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, and will be enabled by default for users with such a license. Automatic rescheduling of 1:1 meetings Automatic rescheduling of flexible 1:1 meetings and personal events in Outlook with Copilot, helping users resolve conflicts with minimal manual effort is coming soon. This will be in addition to the already released auto rescheduling of meeting rooms. Originally this feature was planned for mid‑November 2025 to mid‑January 2026, but is now hopefully coming between to mid‑February 2026 and the end of February 2026. A Microsoft Copilot license is required to use the capability....

Backing up your Lync 2010 Standard edition

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When it comes to Lync 2010 Backup and restore, there are a lot of good articles out there to help you one your way. But none of these examples really satisfied my needs.
And as the Lync 2013 Preview has been released, backing up your existing Lync environment before installing the preview is a really smart thing to do.

I am not going to pretend I wrote all of this, as much of it is almost copy/paste from other posts. But I have been tweaking what others have done before me, and added elements I wanted in my script.

I would like to send a great thank you to  Traci Herr, who did most of the job for me over at: http://bit.ly/eGjGrl

In addition to the original script, I have altered the SQL backup to run within the PS script based on this Wiki post: http://bit.ly/ROnG6v So a great thank you to the contributors there is also in order.

Lastly, I have added a send to .zip file and a clean up routine. This way, I have it all in a singe zip file (which can then be backed up by the system file backup), and I will not run out of disk space (You have no idea how much data you might end up with after a few backups)

The script itself can be downloaded here. And will be posted on my script page shortly.

Here are a few things to consider before you run this on your own servers.

  • This script is for a Standard Edition Server (I will look into a Enterprise edition shortly).
  • The script must be run on a server where Lync PS is available, and this must be imported if you are to run this as a scheduled task (See the script for details).
  • If you want to backup your RGS information, you will have to install reskit tools as well (and import the script commands as I do in my script)
  • My script creates a directory C:\lyncbackup\, this may be edited if you like.
  • I have not been able to enumerate the filepath for a local share on a STD Lync server. This must be edited for autpmation (See script for details)
  • Certificates will only be backed up if you allowed for this when requesting and creating certificates.
  • The creation of the zipfile can take a while. The script finishes before the zipfile is finished (If anyone know how to wait for this task before quitting the script, please let me know).
That's all there is to it.

As always, I appreciate feedback or suggestions on improvements.