Two new updates to Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word: Smarter Creation and Researcher agent

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What’s New in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Word Microsoft continues to evolve its Copilot capabilities in Word, bringing powerful new features that enhance productivity and streamline workflows. Two newly announced updates are rolling out this fall: First out of the gate is the integration of the Researcher Agent, allowing great content generation within Word itself. The second update is bringing more of the search and creation capabilities we have in Chat directly into Word. These updates represent a meaningful step toward closing the functionality gap between Copilot in Word and Copilot Chat. For me, this is a most welcomed improvement, making it easier for end users to get the results they want even faster, with less friction and more flexibility. Deep Research with the New Researcher Agent in Word Not too long ago, Microsoft introduced the Researcher agent in Copilot Chat, but moving and editing that content required copy/paste and jumping between applications. With this coming update...

Backup your Lync Enterprise 2010 Server to one zip file

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It's been a couple of weeks since I posted the backup script for Lync 2010 Standard Edition (here), and I promised to be back with a similar script for the Enterprise edition. I must admit it took longer than I expected as I ran into some issues with the way the SQL server backup works. But here it is, tested on several systems and in working order.

Since it is very similar to the original SE, I'll only focus on the differences in this script, and a few things to look out for.

The biggest challenge was to understand why my SQL server backup failed. Once I figured out my "system error 5 (access denied)" error message, it was only a matter of "creativity" to make it work.

If you examine the two scripts you'll see the SQL server backup routine is almost identical. The difference is in the $dest statement. When you run a SQL server backup, remotely, as this script is set up to do, you actually run the backup as the remote SQL server service's user context. As a result, when the backup "device" is accessed from the SQL server, this is done through a share on the Lync server. And the SQL Server Service account must have write access to this share.

My way of solving this, was through creating a share with the script, access it, and delete it by the end.
#################################################################
# Creating a fileShare with everyone rigths
# If you already have provisioned a share, where you SQL_service user have full controll over,
# You may skip this.
#################################################################

$filepathshare = "c:\lyncbackup"
NET SHARE lyncbackup=$filepathshare "/GRANT:Everyone,FULL"

#################################################################            
# Deleting the fileshare
#################################################################

NET SHARE lyncbackup /y /delete
If you want to set up a permanent share, and restrict access to it, please feel free to do so.

Then the destination of the backup routine should be set to include this file share path

Here are a few things to consider before you run this on your own servers.
  • This script is for a Enterprise Edition Server.
  • The script has only been tested in single site topology. I suspect adjustments must be made for deployments with more than one site (If anyone would do so, or let me have access to such a deployment, please let me know)
  • This script has been tested with a co location of all databeses. If you require it to backup your Monitoring/archiving databases from seperate SQL servers, you must add these sources to the script.
  • The script should be able to run without any modification or input, unless you want to use other paths than I have entered. But, the script is set to map drive Y: to the Lync File Share. If this drive is already in use, you should change this to a drive not already in use.
  • 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.
  • 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).
  • I highly recommend you test the script in your Lab, before running in your production environment
That's all there is to it. All that's left for me to do, is to give you the link to the script: Backupscript - Enterprise EDT v1_2.ps1

As always, I appreciate feedback or suggestions on improvements.