Microsoft announced in July that a new virtual Breakout Rooms feature would come to Microsoft Teams in the final quarter of 2020. It appears that the meeting hosts will soon have an option to create breakout rooms during Teams meetings. Spotted by Tim Evans, a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, the feature has begun rolling out for users running Teams’ preview releases (note: the tweet has since been deleted).

https://twitter.com/edTechEvans/status/1301776724993085440

The Breakout rooms feature is a powerful tool in Microsoft Teams that allows meeting organizers to split a group video or audio call into divergent sessions for smaller group discussions. They can assign users to a room, add/remove/rename the rooms.

Keep in mind that only the organizer of the meeting will see this new Breakout rooms icon, which can be accessed beside the three dots ( . . . ) menu. Clicking on the icon will take users to the Create Breakout Rooms window, which provides different options such as Room settings and Participants.

The meeting organizer will be able to choose the number of rooms (1-50) from the Room settings, and the Participants section will allow them to assign users (Automatically or Manually) to a room. Finally, click Create Rooms, and the Breakout Rooms window will now appear on the screen.

To assign users to a breakout room, click Assign Participants (as shown in the featured image) and then use the checkboxes to select all the users’ names. Next, click the Assign button, and select the room to assign it to users manually.

At this point, the breakout rooms will be closed for the meeting participants, and the organizer will have to click the Start rooms button to open them for discussion. Finally, to bring all participants back to the larger group when the breakout is complete, click Close rooms. This will notify all the meeting participants that they are being asked to leave the breakout rooms.

The feature is currently listed as under development in the Microsoft 365 roadmap, which indicates that it will be released in October 2020. Considering that the breakout room functionality is now being rolled out to preview users, it shouldn’t be long before it makes its way to the public in the coming weeks.

Welcome back to our Windows 10 news recap, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Microsoft’s flagship operating system.

Windows 10 Connect app becomes an optional feature on the May 2020 Update

With the Windows 10 May 2020 Update, the Connect app stopped being pre-installed, and is now listed as a deprecated feature. For those that do have a need or desire to use the Connect app, it is available as an optional feature in the Settings app.

Windows 10 May 2020 Update has new compatibility issues with certain LTE modems

It’s not been an easy ride for the May 2020 Update, with Microsoft’s own Surface devices taking awhile to become supported. Nonetheless, new compatibility issues have been identified with some LTE modems. If affected by the issue, it essentially prevents the device from connecting to the internet after waking from sleep. Microsoft expects to fix the issue in late September.

Microsoft explains how Adobe Flash will be removed from Microsoft Edge and IE 11 at year’s end

Last year Microsoft announced plans to remove Adobe Flash from all of its browsers by the end of 2020. Microsoft has now released further details about its plans. Of particular note, the built-in plugin for the new Microsoft Edge for Flash will be automatically removed in January 2021. For the legacy Microsoft Edge or Internet Explorer 11, Flash will be disabled by default from January 2021.

That’s it for this week. We’ll be back next week with more Windows 10 news.

Microsoft announced last year its plans to remove Adobe Flash from all of its web browsers by the end of 2020, and today the company shared some important updates about continued support for enterprise customers. Adobe Flash has become pretty much irrelevant in the past decade with the rise of HTML5, and the plugin is also a regular source of security concerns. Adobe will end support for Flash in December 2020, and that’s also when Microsoft plans remove it on the new Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Edge Legacy, as well as Internet Explorer 11.

If you’re using the new Microsoft Edge, the built-in Adobe Flash plug-in will be automatically removed from the browser in January 2021. For the legacy Edge and Internet Explorer 11, Adobe Flash will be disabled by default starting in January 2021, and Microsoft plans to remove it completely from the OS via a patch that will be available in the Microsoft Update Catalog later this fall. “The update will be made optional on Windows Update and WSUS in early 2021 and will be made recommended a few months later. It should be noted that this update will be permanent and cannot be un-installed,” the company explained.

In Summer 2021, Microsoft plans to release a patch to remove all APIs, group policies, and interfaces designed to manage the plugin in the legacy version of Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 and Windows 8. However, enterprise users will still be able to access Flash after 2020 via the new IE Mode on the Chromium-based Edge. “Microsoft Edge will allow Adobe Flash Player to load as a plug-in via the Internet Explorer mode feature. Inherently, Internet Explorer 11 will also allow this. Once you make the switch from Microsoft provided Adobe Flash Player, it will be treated as any other third-party plug-in and will not receive Customer Support from Microsoft,” the company explained.

Adobe Flash used to be a major component of the Internet 10 years ago, but the proprietary plugin was not well suited for mobile devices. Apple’s decision to not allow it on iOS devices played and the rise of open standards like HTML5 eventually played a huge role in its demise. Adobe announced the deprecation of Flash back in 2017, but there are still some companies which will need some assistance to finally move away from the plugin. If needed, you can find more information about Microsoft’s Edge IE Mode on this page.

Microsoft is planning to make some important changes to improve its Teams meetings participant reports functionality later this month. The new capabilities have been designed to help companies better manage their attendance reports, according to the company’s most recent update to its Microsoft 365 Roadmap.

The first new feature that the company highlighted is the ability for meeting organizers to download a participant report for a Teams meeting once the meeting is over. Just as a reminder, the participant report is currently only available during active meetings. The participant data disappears once the meeting is ended or a user leaves early. For this reason, the meeting organizers need to download the report while all participants are still present, but this should change soon.

With this new enhancement, Microsoft will allow Teams meeting organizers to download a list of participants directly from the meeting chat (roster view) whenever they want. If the meeting is recorded, the transcript, recording, and attendance report will be grouped together in the chat window (as shown below). Otherwise, the meeting organizers will only see an option to download the participant list.

Another important new update for Microsoft Teams is additional participant data in the report. At this point, meeting organizers can only see the name, join time, and leave time of all meeting attendees. Once the update is available, the participant report will include more details like the duration, meeting start time, meeting title, and email address.

The Microsoft 365 Roadmap entry suggests that the updated functionality for downloading participant reports in Teams meetings will begin rolling out in mid-September, and its generally available is expected in mid-October. The company noted that it’s up to the Office 365 Admins to turn this feature on for all users in their organization.

Two exciting foldable phones will be released in September with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 and Microsoft’s Surface Duo. As you may know, Microsoft’s first Surface “phone” had quite a troubled development cycle with the company ultimately opting for Android instead of a Windows 10-based OS, and the Surface Duo will also come with 2019 specs and lack notable features such as NFC.

The Redmond giant probably disappointed many Surface fans by announcing that the Surface Duo would launch exclusively in the US on September 10, despite the device receiving certification in other markets including Canada. It’s quite understandable that the company wants first to test waters in the US with this new form factor, but Windows Central’s Zac Bowden is reporting today that Microsoft could be getting ready to bring the Surface Duo to more markets next year.

“According to my sources Microsoft is looking to begin shipping Surface Duo in external markets in the first half of 2021 after seeing if the product surpasses internal expectations in the United States first. This plan is fluid, however, and Microsoft could decide to bring its release in other markets forward if circumstances change,” Bowden wrote.

There’s no denying that $1,399 is a lot to ask for a device with last year’s specs that also lacks the complex multiple camera setups found on all flagship smartphones these days. However, Microsoft is clearly targeting Surface fans and early adopters instead of regular consumers with Surface Duo. It remains to be seen if the unique dual-screen design and premium build quality will well be enough to convince enthusiasts in the US to buy a Surface Duo, but our early impressions have been very positive.

Do you hope to see Microsoft release the Surface Duo in other markets next year? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and if you live in the US we remind you that you can already pre-order the Duo from the Microsoft Store, Best Buy, and AT&T.

Microsoft’s Ignite conference was supposed to be held in New Orleans this year, but with the COVID-19 pandemic changing those plans, anyone can now attend a digital Ignite conference for free online. Indeed, Microsoft has just announced that registrations are now officially open, giving you your chance to secure your spot for the 48-hour digital event.

To sign up for Ignite this year, all you need is a work or school Microsoft 365 account, or a Microsoft account and to visit this webpage. You also can sign up using LinkedIn or GitHub accounts, too. Choosing one of those methods will allow you to access your personal information, custom event agenda, and more across devices. Watch Microsoft Corporate Vice President talk about what you can expect in the video below.

A few words from @julwhite, CVP of Microsoft Azure: pic.twitter.com/yT5xi5SR40

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) September 3, 2020

According to Microsoft, with this new all-digital conference, attendees will have the opportunity to “connect with technical communities and share the latest product developments.” There will be two sessions, a free 48-hour digital gathering from September 22-24. Then, a second Ignite conference will be held later in the year 2021.

Microsoft Flight Simulator became one of the highest-rated Xbox Game Studios titles in years when it launched on PC on August 18, and we’ve just learned that the game also had the biggest launch in Xbox Game Pass for PC history. Just like all new Xbox Game Studios titles, Microsoft Flight Simulator launched on Xbox Game Pass on day one, and Microsoft announced today that more than one million unique players have now played the game in just over two weeks.

“It’s been wonderful to see the reactions to Microsoft Flight Simulator from the community, who have flown more than 26 million flights and logged more than 1 billion miles flown to date – the equivalent of flying around the world over 40 thousand times,” said Jorg Neumann, Head of Microsoft Flight Simulator. “Launch marks the beginning of a journey for us and this is just the start. There is plenty more to come on our flight itinerary including world updates, sim updates, and future themed DLC,” he added.

This new Flight Simulator game was announced a year ago at E3 2019, along with Xbox Game Pass for PC. The PC version of Microsoft’s game subscription service is still in beta at a promotional price of $4.99/month, but the catalog already includes over 100 quality PC games including Halo: MCC, Final Fantasy XV, No Man’s Sky, or the freshly-released Crusader Kings III. Seeing Microsoft Flight Simulator, a pretty demanding game becoming the biggest game launch in Xbox Game Pass for PC history probably tells something about gamers’ appetite for this very old franchise, which received an impressive next-gen refresh thanks to developer Asobo Studios.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft Flight Simulator didn’t benefit from a massive marketing campaign either, and that makes this 1 million players numbers even more impressive. The game was completely missing from Microsoft’s big Xbox Game Showcase in July, and we still don’t know when it will be available on Xbox consoles. As these PC numbers show, the game has the potential to become a great attraction for Xbox Game Pass, and the game could probably become a big hit on Xbox consoles as well. This is definitely a game that could really showcase the power of the Xbox Series X, something that the now-delayed Halo: Infinite pretty much failed to do so far.

If you haven’t done it yet, we invite you to read our hands-on with Microsoft Flight Simulator here. The game also received a new patch this week that should solve installation issues for both Microsoft Store and Steam versions. Again, the game is also free to play with Xbox Game Pass for PC, and new subscribers can try the service for just $1/month.

Download
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Microsoft Flight Simulator: Standard Edition

Developer:
Xbox Game Studios

Price:
Free

Download
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PC Game Pass

Developer:
Microsoft Corporation

Price:
$1.00

These days, working from home often involves juggling a lot of different types of information. You have to keep track of To-Do lists, documents, your notes for meetings, links to websites, and a lot more. That often means sifting through many different Microsoft services, like To Do, Outlook, OneDrive, or Edge.

In such a treasure chest of information, it’s really easy to get lost or feel disorganized. So, why not have a single, central hub where you can organize and bring all this information under one place?

That’s where Project Moca preview comes into the picture. It’s a new experience from Microsoft, currently in a preview, which simplifies your workflow so you can focus on what matters. Here’s a hands-on look with the experience.

Launching Project Moca

Currently, project Moca is in preview for Microsoft 365 consumer subscribers, EDU customers, and select commercial customers. To open the experience, you need to click to it from the module switcher on Outlook for the web. That’s the area at the bottom where you have access to your Outlook Calendar.

If you don’t see it there, you need to look for it in the overflow menu at the bottom (the . . . ) If it’s still not available there, you can access Project Moca by going to Outlook.com/Spaces. That’s because Project Moca had another name, known as Outlook Spaces, as we detailed back in February. It’s not clear if Outlook Spaces will be the final name.

Different Templates

As soon as you go into Project Moca, you’ll be greeted with the option to choose different types of templates. Some of these include a weekly plan, a project plan, a school plan, a meal plan, or a personal wellness plan. No matter which template you choose, they’ll all be placed on a simple canvas known as a “space,” allowing you to stay on top of information for that specific plan. You also can start from blank, and create your own one, too, if needed. We suggest you start here, so you can play around with Moca and learn the ropes.

For the purposes of this hands-on, we’ll be creating a blank template. Regardless if you choose one of the templates, or start from scratch, the process of adding information types and other materials will be the same. In our hands-on, we’ll be starting from blank and creating a custom template (and space) for our upcoming Surface Duo review. Once a plan is created, you’ll be able to get to it by selecting the “Space” from the main Project Moca page.

Getting Started

Once you create a space (or choose a Template) in Project Moca, you’ll have to give it a name. You also can add up to three names and email addresses to be used in the template for search purposes. Finally, you can add keywords, which helps Project Moca pull out information from Microsoft’s services to help you create that template. There’s also a drop-down menu to choose a template type, as well.

The Canvas

Now that you created a space in Project Moca, you’re free to start editing it and adding more information. A bit like Microsoft Whiteboard, the canvas in Project Moca has a few different tools, and all of them are used to add things to your canvas.

You’ll see these tools all in the toolbar at the side of the screen. It can be collapsed at any time by clicking Hide Toolbar. From here, you can add a bucket, a note, a file, link, task, goal, or weather. There’s also the ability to add a location or a person too. You can even zoom out to add more content, by clicking the magnifying glass in the bottom right corner of the screen. Finally, anything you add to the canvas can be dragged around, as you see fit.

We’ll start first by creating a bucket. In Project Moca, a bucket allows you to drag certain items into a central hub of sorts, to organize your space a bit more. We created a main bucket for “things for Surface Duo Review” and will be dragging some notes into it, created fusing the Note tool. If you want, you can change the color of the bucket, or set the due date as well. Anything you create in Moca can be dragged into a bucket. You also can change the color for anything you add in Moca, as well.

Next up, we’ll talk about some of the other things you can add to the canvas in a space on Project Moca. You can create Notes, just as you would a sticky note in Windows 10. These notes will sync up to your Windows 10 PC, too. You also can add files, as well. Any added file will come from your OneDrive account. Additionally, you can add a link to a relevant webpage, or create a task. Tasks will be saved to To Do. Finally, any goal added to Space will be saved to Outlook.

Adding additional content, and email messages

Another interesting point about Project Moca is the ability to drag in emails to your canvas and space. You can do this by clicking the search icon at the top right corner of the screen. When done, You’ll see a list of your messages from Outlook. To put it on the canvas, just click it and choose to add to canvas. You can also drag items, too, if need be.

This is a super useful feature for when you want to keep an email handy in relation to your ongoing space. If you want, you also can do the same thing with events, too. And, you can “capture” an email by clicking Add to Project Moca from the . . . menu from your email in your Outlook inbox.

Check it out now and let us know your thoughts!

Project Moca is a super cool experience, and it definitely is a nice take on Trello and other task management tools. It allows you to bring all things Microsoft related to work or play, right under one central place to help you stay organized. Check it out now, and let us know if you like the experience by dropping us a comment.

Microsoft has released two new versions for PowerToys, its collection of utilities for power users designed to streamline their Windows experience. PowerToys version 0.21.1 is a maintenance update to the stable v0.20, and it’s mainly focused on localization, stability as well as quality enhancements for both users and developers.

The company has also released a new preview release, version 0.22. This release includes a nifty Video Conference Mute tool that lets users to easily mute their audio/video streams of a video conference with a single button.

We released 0.21.1 for #powerToys. This includes a host of improvements including accessibility fixes. We also released 0.22.0-Experimental. This introduces our new utility, Video conference global mute. https://t.co/Seny8v20SY

— Clint Rutkas (@ClintRutkas) September 2, 2020

“The utility will mute not just your audio but your video as well with a single keystroke. You can do audio, video both. We knew this would impact our roadmap and goals but felt extremely strong that this is the right decision. We’re all multi-tasking and trying to make the best of everything and being able to quickly mute while on a conference call is critical regardless of where you are on your computer,” said Clint Rutkas, Program manager lead on PowerToys.

To use the Video Conference Mute tool during a meeting, simply select the PowerToys camera (as shown above). Once the camera is set up, a quick toggle UI will appear on your screen that can be used to mute video and audio streaming. Users will also be able to use some shortcut keys to tweak their audio/video settings.

• Win+N to toggle both Audio and Video at the same time
• Win+Shift+O to toggle video
• Win+Shift+A to toggle microphone

For those anxious to download the update, head over to the official GitHub page to download the latest version. Just be aware, it’s still an experimental mute feature for video conferences, and there are still some problems with the preview build. “We know a certain laptops currently the video forwarding does not work and are proactively working on fixing this,” Rutkas explained.

Heads up Windows Insiders, the Windows 10 Insider build 20206 is now available in the Dev Channel with some exciting new features. The first interesting addition is Windows Voice Typing, which is an evolution of Windows dictation that’s now optimized for use with touch keyboards. 14 languages are currently supported including English, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese, and Voice typing will support auto-punctuation and intuitive voice commands.

Voice typing will roll out to just a subset of Dev Channel Insiders at first, so don’t worry if you don’t see it immediately. The Windows Insider team also noted that Insiders may experience random pauses while using the feature in some Office apps, but clicking the microphone icon or using the dedicated Win + H shortcut should restart the listening experience.

The build 20206 also brings some changes to the Emoji Picker, which gets an acrylic background, Emoji search, and animated GIF support powered by Tenor. Microsoft is also combining input and clipboard history, and the latter will now show up when switching to the “Clipboard” category after pressing the WIN + [.] or WIN + [;] shortcuts. Again, these improvements for the Emoji picker will only roll out to a subset of Insiders who install this new build today.

Some Insiders will also notice a new touch keyboard after installing the new bits. “The updated design includes a fresh aesthetic and many other small tweaks, including updated key sizes / layouts to optimize for typing comfort & accuracy. We have also done some work to help improve discoverability and usability of available features,” the Windows Insider team explained today.

Another important change to the touch keyboard is the ability to hold and drag on the spacebar to move the cursor. This has been a popular request from Insiders, but once again, only a subset of them will see this new feature after installing today’s build.

This build also brings other minor changes, bug fixes, and known issues, and you can find the full list below:

Changes and Improvements

• When annotated content and linked control Narrator commands are invoked on context which doesn’t have any linked controls available, Narrator will now say “No linked item”.
• When setting focus to Windows Explorer in the Processes tab of Task Manager, we’re updating the keyboard shortcut for the Restart option to now be Alt + R.

Fixes

• We fixed an issue where the new option to enable DNS encryption wasn’t persisting update.
• We fixed an issue leading to certain apps not launching due to nlsdl.dll being missing.
• We fixed a race condition in the last few builds that could result in some Insiders experiencing scaling issues after waking their PC from sleep when using multiple monitors.
• We fixed an issue that could result in the Narrator Home crashing when using the back button.
• We fixed an issue where after adding a VPN connection, Narrator focus would move to the Settings home button rather than read that the VPN connection had been successfully added.
• We fixed an issue from the last two flights resulting in Office documents opening blank when opened from File Explorer rather than from within the app.
• We’ve fixed an issue in the Mail app preventing syncing with certain mail services.
• We’ve fixed and issue causing some devices to receive bugchecks with error code KERNEL_MODE_HEAP_CORRUPTION.
• We fixed an issue that could result in Task Manager erroneously indicating that a non-UWP app had been suspended. We’ve mitigated an issue with the previous build causing some devices to download larger than normal amounts of data during the update process. This may have resulted in slower downloads and disk space warnings. If you continue to experience the issue with this build, please file a new feedback.
• We’ve made improvements to address issues where the new taskbar experience for pinned websites wasn’t working for some websites. If you continue encountering issues, please ensure you’re running the latest version of Microsoft Edge Dev or Canary, and report the issue using the Feedback button in Microsoft Edge if you are.

Known issues

• We’re looking into reports of the update process hanging for extended periods of time when attempting to install a new build.
• We’re working on a fix to enable live preview for pinned site tabs.
• We’re working on enabling the new taskbar experience for existing pinned sites. In the meantime, you can unpin the site from the taskbar, remove it from the edge://apps page, and then re-pin the site.
• We’re investigating reports of some Office applications crashing or missing after updating to a new build.
• We’re investigating reports of the Settings app crashing when opening Manage Disks and Volumes.
• We’re working on a fix for the Linux kernel not being installed when using the `wsl –install` command in the Windows Subsystem for Linux. For an immediate workaround run `wsl –update` to get the latest kernel version.

Microsoft has been consistently releasing new builds on Wednesdays this past couple of weeks, though today’s flight comes a bit later than usual. It will certainly be a bit frustrating for Insiders to not have access to all new features immediately, though the Windows Insider team promised that Voice Dictation, the new Emoji picker, and the redesigned touch keyboard would soon be generally available in the Dev Channel.