Microsoft Build 2022: news and updates from Microsoft’s developer conference

Microsoft is finally adding restore apps to the Microsoft Store on Windows 11. The software maker will soon start testing a new feature that allows you to restore apps onto a new Windows 11 PC. The existing Microsoft Store hasn’t offered an automatic way to restore apps, instead forcing Windows users to manually install apps from their library.

“To make it easier for customers to transition to their new PCs quickly and seamlessly, we will soon test a new feature in the Windows Insider channel that helps customers automatically restore their apps, previously installed from the Microsoft Store, to their new Windows device,” explains Giorgio Sardo, general manager of the Microsoft Store. “This will also help developers retain their customers without having to remind customers to re-download their app.”

Microsoft is working on a native Arm64 version of Visual Studio 2022 and a miniature Arm PC. A preview version of an Arm native version of Visual Studio 2022 will be available “in the next few weeks” and is expected to ship fully later this year alongside Arm64 .NET support.

While Arm devices like the Surface Pro X have been able to run Visual Studio through x64 emulation, some features haven’t been supported and performance has suffered, too. Developers will certainly be intrigued to hear more about native Arm support for Visual Studio 2022 and VS Code, and Microsoft is creating what it describes as an “Arm-native toolchain”:

Microsoft has started testing its new OneNote design refresh. The software maker first teased the visual update last year, revealing that it will unify its OneNote and OneNote for Windows 10 apps into a single OneNote app. Beta testers can now get access to some of the new OneNote design changes as part of the traditional desktop version of OneNote.

The design changes allow OneNote to slot in more seamlessly with the rest of the Windows 11 aesthetic. The navigation panes and full-screen mode are being updated, and the page list, section tabs, and notebook dropdown all look different, too. Microsoft is using its Mica effect, which is used in the Windows 11 theme and desktop wallpaper, for the general app window of OneNote.

Microsoft is planning to support third-party widgets inside Windows 11 later this year. At its annual Build developer conference today, the software giant says it will open up access to Windows 11 widgets to developers as companions to their win32 or PWA apps.

Currently, the Windows 11 widgets system is restricted to native widgets created by Microsoft, and the selection is rather limited. Microsoft has built widgets for its Outlook and To Do apps, but the rest are largely web-powered ones that present the weather, entertainment feeds, or news in the dedicated widgets panel for Windows 11.

Microsoft put PCs in the cloud with Windows 365 last year, and now, it wants to entice developers to use a cloud-powered developer workstation. Microsoft Dev Box is a new cloud service that includes apps and services designed for developers to quickly access a preconfigured developer workstation.

Microsoft Dev Box is built on top of the foundations of Windows 365, so it’s easy to spin up a new virtual machine and get working. That means Microsoft Dev Box will work on any modern browser, and the machines support any integrated development environment (IDE), software development kit (SDK), or tools that run on top of Windows.

Microsoft is adding a new Live Share feature to Microsoft Teams, which will allow participants to start co-editing or co-creating during Teams meetings. Live Share will be available through apps that integrate into Microsoft Teams, offering more interactive meetings that go beyond simple screen sharing.

Developers at Frame.io, Hexagon, Skillsoft, MakeCode, Accenture, Parabol, and Breakthru are all currently experimenting with apps that utilize this new Live Share functionality. Hexagon has created an app prototype that uses Live Share in Microsoft Teams to allow engineers to zoom in, annotate, and edit 3D models in real time during a Teams meeting.