Wine 11.14 is out with initial WoW64 mode support on FreeBSD, allowing 32-bit Windows applications to run on a 64-bit system without relying on 32-bit multilib support. The release also adds Start Menu icon support in Wine Explorer, 7.1 format conversions in DirectSound, AES-GMAC support in BCrypt, and 21 bug fixes affecting apps and games including Adobe Reader, Heroes of the Storm, and Age of Empires I and II. Additional details can be found at WineHQ.org.

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Today we’re expanding model choice in Microsoft 365 Copilot with the addition of Anthropic’s latest model—Claude Opus 5. 

Claude Opus 5 is the newest model in Anthropic’s Opus family. Designed to be used every day for complex, multi-step work. It improves on Opus 4.8 across agentic coding, professional knowledge work, and long-horizon reasoning¹.  
 

With Opus 5, Copilot takes on more of the steps between idea and finished work across the apps you use every day—while keeping you in control of the final outcome: 

• Word: Move from rough idea to a complete draft, holding structure and flow together across longer documents. 

• Excel: Work through complex analysis with higher-quality modeling and more polished workbooks. 

• PowerPoint: Build and refine presentation drafts from first outline to polished deck, with more visual polish, creative layouts, and better use of slide space 

• Copilot Chat: Tackle open-ended, novel problems—comparing options, structuring plans, working through ambiguity—with stronger reasoning. 

• Copilot Cowork: Stay focused on long-running tasks, orchestrating work across tools and files with the context Work IQ brings from your organization to carry a project through start to finish. 

• Copilot Studio: Build agents on Claude Opus 5 for advanced reasoning, workflow automation, and multi-step tool use in the preview orchestrator. 

We’re committed to bringing you the latest AI innovation and model choice for AI at work, supported by Microsoft’s enterprise-grade security, privacy, and compliance.  

Get started today  

Claude Opus 5 is rolling out to the model selector in Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Chat, Copilot Cowork, and Copilot Studio. 

Availability may vary by region and tenant configuration; refer to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and Microsoft 365 Copilot release notes for the latest rollout status.   

For more details on the model, see Anthropic’s Opus 5 announcement1

If you rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot and then watched most of your people ignore it, this one's for you.

I help organizations deploy Copilot in front of thousands of users, and the pattern is almost always the same. A company buys Copilot, starts the rollout, and then watches it sit there. It's easy to blame the tool. Most of the time we handed everyone a blank box and expected them to figure out what to type.

Your people aren't prompt engineers. They're nurses, knowledge workers, and HR. They open Copilot, see a blank screen, type something like "summarize this email," don't love what comes back, and quietly walk away. Do that across thousands of users and adoption stalls.

There's an admin setting that helps with exactly this. It's called organizational prompts, and if you own Copilot for your org, don't sit on it.

 

What organizational prompts do

Organizational prompts let you load a library of ready-to-use prompts straight into Copilot for your whole organization. You create and publish them once, and they show up for your users across Copilot Chat, Microsoft Edge, and Teams, suggested automatically as people type. Instead of a blank screen, your users open a menu and pick from prompts you already wrote for them, sorted by department. It gives people a starting point, which is the thing most of them are missing.

One heads-up before you go looking for it. This is rolling out right now, so if you don't see Prompts under Copilot yet, that's likely why, but most are already seeing it in their tenants, so it should be there soon. You'll also need the AI Administrator or Search Editor role to manage them.

How to set it up

Head to the Microsoft 365 admin center. On the left, drop down Copilot and open Prompts. That's where your organizational prompts live.

You've got two ways to add them:

• Create them one at a time with the Create prompt button.
• Import them in bulk. Download the CSV template, fill in one row per prompt, save it as CSV UTF-8, and import the set. You can import up to 100 prompts at a time (5 MB max per file), and publish up to 1,000 in your tenant. If you already have a prompt catalog in a spreadsheet, this is the fast path.

When you create or edit a prompt, you'll set a few fields:

• Title and display prompt. The title is the label on the prompt lab card (35 characters). The display prompt is the short version shown on the pill suggestions and autosuggest (132 characters).
• Prompt. The actual text sent to Copilot when someone picks it. This is required and gives you room to write a real prompt (up to 8,000 characters).
• Supported apps. Pick where the prompt shows up. This one matters. Not everyone has a premium license, but everyone has Copilot Chat on the web, so you can make a prompt available there too.
• Department. Heads up: departments don't map to a security group. They're free-text filters for the end user. Tag prompts with IT, Finance, HR, and so on so people can sort the library by their team.
• Task type. These come from Microsoft (Analyze, Create, Edit, and so on). You can't make your own, but tagging them helps users filter.
• Language. Set the language for the prompt. There's no auto-translation, so if you need a prompt in multiple languages, create a separate one for each.

Hit publish and it's live. Give it about 3 hours to show up in the prompt lab. You can also pin your most important prompts, up to four, and those pinned ones show up as suggested prompts on the Copilot home screen.

Check the analytics

There's an Analytics tab that's worth your time. Once the data populates, you can see active users and submissions per prompt over the last 7, 14, or 28 days. That tells you which prompts people actually use, which ones to fix, and where adoption is landing. It's a straight read on what's working.

Where your users find them

Setup is half the job. Users need to know where these live. They show up in three spots:

• The Suggested button on the Copilot home screen, which opens your pinned prompts.
• The prompt lab, where users search by keyword and filter by department or task type. Picking a prompt drops it into the message box so they can tweak it before sending.
• Autosuggest right in the Copilot input box as someone starts typing.

So someone on IT can search "IT," grab a prompt that rewrites a help desk reply so it doesn't read like "did you try restarting your computer," and send something that sounds a lot nicer. Pre-made prompts, sorted by team, ready to go.

Do these two things after you turn it on

1. Tell people it exists. Send a note to your communication channel. You've got a prompt library, it's sorted by department, here's where to find it. A library nobody knows about doesn't move adoption.
2. Give people a way to submit prompts. Set up a channel where users can send you good prompts to add. When someone finds a prompt that works for Finance or IT, they should have a clear path to say "add this one." That keeps the library growing from the people actually using it.

Organizations have been asking for this because they want to hand users a foundation for getting started with Copilot. Organizational prompts are one of the cleanest ways to do it, and it takes minutes.

If you're an admin, this is a quick win with real impact. Set it up, tell your people, and give them a way to add to it.

For the full field reference and character limits, here's Microsoft's official documentation: Organizational prompts for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Go push some buttons.

Welcome to the July edition of our monthly newsletter, summarizing the latest news and developments in the exciting, ever-evolving world of Microsoft Entra.

 

What went into General Availability (GA) since June 2026?

Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery - A capability that helps organizations restore a tenant after accidental or malicious changes. On by default, it automatically backs up critical directory objects, including users, groups, applications, Service Principals, managed identities, Conditional Access policies, named locations, agent IDs, and authentication and authorization policies, so admins can return to a known good state. The service takes daily backups of supported objects and retains them for 7 days with Microsoft Entra ID P1 or P2 licenses. Admins can view snapshots, compare changes, and run recovery jobs. This feature is a reliable safety net to minimize downtime and strengthen protection against misconfigurations and security incidents.

Direct admin assignment to external users using email address - Entitlement management admins can assign external users, not in the directory, to an access package with the user's email. Users are invited into the tenant as Guest users and are governed when Microsoft Entra ID Governance is configured.

Bring your own device (BYOD) support for the Global Secure Access Windows client using Microsoft Entra‑registered devices - Enable users and partners to access corporate resources from their own devices. Administrators can assign the Private Application traffic profile to users with internal accounts, including internal guest users. This removes the previous requirement for Windows devices to be domain‑joined.

Microsoft Entra Kerberos key rotation - Improves reliability for environments by using incoming trust referral flows. The update enhances authentication resiliency during key rollover by validating referral tickets with primary and secondary Kerberos keys. This combination reduces the likelihood of authentication failures and minimizes disruption during rotation events.

Domainless SAML federation with a SAML identity provider - Enable external users to sign in to applications or workforce resources using their Identity Provider (IdP)-managed credentials, regardless of their email domain. With no need to match user email domains with preconfigured identity provider domains, this capability simplifies onboarding and access for external users, streamlines invitation redemption, and improves flexibility for cross-organization collaboration in Microsoft Entra.

New in Public Preview

Strengthen AI agent security with Conditional Access - Microsoft Entra Conditional Access has broader controls to secure AI agents that leverage user accounts. Administrators can target agent user accounts more precisely by including, or excluding, agents, or by using custom security attributes for dynamic grouping. Organizations can apply Conditional Access policies, based on agent risk, require compliant devices for agents running on managed endpoints, including Windows 365 for Agents, and enforce device, network, and platform-based access conditions. These enhancements extend Zero Trust protections to agent user accounts while using the familiar Conditional Access policy experience.

Restrict AD group changes to Microsoft Entra provisioning - Designate specific Active Directory (AD) groups so all modifications are managed through the Microsoft Entra provisioning service. This capability helps maintain consistency between Microsoft Entra ID and AD by ensuring group changes are centrally controlled. Reduce configuration drift and improve alignment across identity systems.

Generate unique aliases with custom call-outs - Use custom call-outs with Azure Logic Apps during user provisioning to perform advanced attribute transformations that meet your organization's requirements. Custom call-outs can generate values such as unique employee aliases and are supported for create events in HR inbound, SaaS outbound, and cross-tenant synchronization provisioning flows in Microsoft Entra.

Announcements

Jailbreak/root detection in Microsoft Authenticator - This feature strengthens security by preventing Microsoft Entra credentials from being added or used on jailbroken or rooted devices. Users move to compliant devices to continue using work or school accounts in Authenticator. It is secure by default, requires no admin configuration, and applies to iOS and Android. Personal and third-party accounts are not affected.

Starting August 2026, Microsoft Authenticator on iOS will offer an improved backup and restore experience - Users can back up account names securely by using iCloud and iCloud Keychain with end-to-end encryption. This experience includes work or school accounts, Microsoft personal accounts, and non-Microsoft accounts like Amazon or Google, also third-party time-based one-time password (TOTP). No other credentials are included in the backup. This update removes the need for a Microsoft personal account and simplifies device setup by automatically restoring account names on new iOS devices. Users manage the feature through iCloud settings

New guidance and information

SCIM APIs available in U.S. Government Cloud - Microsoft Entra SCIM 2.0 APIs, which went into GA, in the public cloud, earlier in 2026, are available in Microsoft U.S. Government Cloud. Organizations can use standards-based SCIM operations to provision and manage users and groups in Microsoft Entra ID from external SCIM-compatible identity sources. Enable scalable identity lifecycle management, while you reduce the need for custom integrations.

Tell us what you think!

If you have feedback on this newsletter, fill out the dedicated Microsoft Form.

Blogs

Check out the latest blog posts on our Microsoft Entra Blog and our Microsoft Entra Identity Developer Blog.

What's new in Microsoft Entra?

Learn what is new with Microsoft Entra, such as the latest release notes, known issues, bug fixes, deprecation functionality, and upcoming changes. You can find releases specific for Sovereign Clouds on a dedicated release notes page.

Become a certified Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator

Check out the certification and related training for the Microsoft Identity and Access Administrator available for customers and partners.

 

-Martin Coetzer

Principal Product Manager, Identity and Network Access, Customer Experience Engineering (CXE)

Microsoft Entra Community | LinkedIn

 

Learn more about Microsoft Entra

Prevent identity attacks, ensure least privilege access, unify access controls, and improve the experience for users with comprehensive identity and network access solutions across on-premises and clouds.

• ⁠Microsoft Entra News and Insights | Microsoft Security Blog
• Microsoft Entra blog | Tech Community
• Microsoft Entra documentation | Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft Entra discussions | Microsoft Community 

Most AI handles one task well. The harder problem is the complex workflow that spans hours. Effective enterprise AI must be capable of managing complex workflows that require planning, adaptation, and persistence over extended periods.   

We're excited to announce that Claude Opus 5, Anthropic's most advanced Opus model and the first Opus model in the fifth generation of Claude, is now available in Microsoft Foundry. Whether you are building agents, coding software, or automating enterprise workflows, Opus 5 is designed to work for hours, find paths around obstacles, navigate codebases like a senior engineer, and support deeper reasoning and higher accuracy.  Combined with Microsoft Foundry's enterprise platform including Foundry evaluation tools, native security controls, governance, and scalable deployment, organizations can confidently build and operate the next generation of AI applications.  

Navigates codebases like an engineer 

Writing a good function isn't the hard part anymore. The hard part is understanding how a change ripples through a large repository, across files, across architecture decisions someone made years ago. Claude Opus 5 is Anthropic's strongest Opus model yet for that kind of work: it navigates large codebases with the judgment of an engineer, adjusts its approach as a project evolves, and can run for hours, even overnight, on a senior engineering task, working around obstacles instead of stalling on them.  

Builds long-running agents that can work for hours  

Many enterprise workflows cannot be completed in a single interaction. Research, software engineering, document review, and operational automation often require AI systems that can work continuously over multiple steps while responding intelligently to changing conditions.  

Claude Opus 5 powers dependable long-running agents, recovering from errors, and reaching their objectives.  Opus 5 plans a workflow, adapts the plan when something breaks, and holds context across tools and subagents to see it through. Combined with Microsoft Foundry Agent Service, developers can build reliable agents that automate sophisticated business processes while maintaining enterprise governance and observability.  

Transforms enterprise knowledge work  

From precise financial workflows to professional work that runs for days, , Opus 5 is built to handle the density of that work with deeper reasoning for long documents, higher accuracy for complex analysis, and raises the bar for the practical tasks that fill a workday. It is built for enterprise work, powering agents that run multi-day projects end-to-end, and follows instructions precisely, stays in scope, and produces professional-grade spreadsheets, slides, and docs. 

Brings deeper reasoning to financial workflows  

Financial analysis cannot tolerate shortcuts. Opus 5 is built to read a dense filing, hold a chart or table in context alongside it, and carry that thread across an entire transaction or reporting cycle, not just the page in front of it. That's the reasoning investment research, corporate finance, risk analysis, and due diligence work depend on.   

Understands documents, charts, and visual information  

Enterprise work is increasingly visual, not just text. Critical information lives in scanned PDFs, dashboards, invoices, technical diagrams, and screenshots of systems that may never have been formally documented. Claude Opus 5 brings advanced vision capabilities to the Opus class, enabling AI to accurately understand and reason over visual content rather than simply extract text from it. Combined with Foundry IQ, which connects agents to documentation and process knowledge already embedded across your organization, AI agents can securely access, interpret, and act on enterprise data in context. Together, these capabilities provide the foundation for intelligent document processing, enterprise search, and a new generation of multimodal applications.

Automates work across multiple applications  

Claude Opus 5 is also a strong model for computer use. By combining high-resolution vision with deep reasoning, the model can interact with software interfaces and complete workflows that span multiple applications. It can navigate interfaces and execute multi-step tasks requiring planning and judgment. This opens new opportunities for automating repetitive business operations while reducing manual effort.  

Enterprise-ready AI with Microsoft Foundry  

Claude Opus 5 is Zero Data Retention compatible. Powerful models alone are not enough for production AI. Organizations also need platform capabilities to build, evaluate, secure, and scale enterprise applications.  

With Opus 5 in Microsoft Foundry, developers can:  

• Build AI applications using Azure-native authentication, networking, billing, and governance.   

• Evaluate model quality and compare prompts, models, and workflows before deployment.   

• Ground AI applications with enterprise data and knowledge using Microsoft IQ.   

• Monitor performance and improve agents through continuous evaluation.   

• Deploy production AI with the security, compliance, and operational controls enterprises expect.   

Microsoft Foundry gives organizations the complete platform needed to move from experimentation to production with confidence.  

Opus 5 is available now in Microsoft Foundry. Start building: AI Model Catalog | Microsoft Foundry Models

Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Palantir, and more than 20 other tech companies signed an open letter urging policymakers not to impose "premature restrictions" on open-weight AI models, warning that broad limits could "stifle competition or drive innovation overseas." CNBC reports: They wrote that open-weight models strengthen competition and ensure that the benefits of the technology are "broadly shared rather than concentrated in a few hands." "Relying solely on closed models is not inherently safe: they can be breached, misused, or fail in ways that outsiders cannot detect," the letter said. "And concentrating advanced AI capabilities behind a small number of closed models compounds that risk." Elon Musk, who runs an AI business under his rocket company SpaceX, also applified the letter on social media, writing that it has his "full support" in a post on X. SpaceX did not officially sign the letter. Greg Brockman, OpenAI's president, said Thursday that the company believes in broad access, and that he has not been involved in any conversations with the Trump administration about potentially banning Chinese open-weight models in the U.S. "I think that, that fundamentally, AI and AI usage is something that is actually very important to democratize," Brockman told reporters during a briefing in New York City. "And so, for me, at a sort of deep level, I think that having more models, more usage, that is a good thing." OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the letter in a post on X on Friday, writing that he wants the U.S. to win with both open-weight and proprietary models, and that he is "glad to see this." [...] In the letter on Friday, the U.S. tech companies said that concerns about unlawful distillation should be addressed through "targeted legal and commercial frameworks" instead of with "sweeping restrictions on techniques that play an important role in AI innovation." "Our AI leadership will be judged not by one frontier AI model, but by whether the United States builds a strong, open ecosystem that diffuses into every sector," the letter said. "This is essential for creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country." The letter follows a separate appeal signed by nearly 200 Silicon Valley companies, including Proton and Y Combinator, warning that restricting U.S. access to Chinese open-weight AI models could cripple the next generation of American startups. "American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models and continued access for U.S. builders to open models already available worldwide," the startup founders wrote. Instead of broad prohibitions, they argue the government should adopt targeted safeguards. Of course, these signees "have an obvious economic stake in seeing open AI models flourish," notes TechCrunch. "Companies like Nvidia, Microsoft Azure, and other infrastructure providers have a vested interest in pushing for commoditized models: If models are interchangeable, people will buy more GPUs, rent more cloud capacity, and build more applications."

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