RSS Parrot

February 2026 Insiders (version 1.110)

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/vscode-blog/february-2026-insiders-(version-1.110)

Published: March 4, 2026 17:00

Learn what is new in the Visual Studio Code February 2026 Release (1.110). Read the full article

Announcing Shader Model 6.9 Retail and New D3D12 Improvements

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/shader-model-6-9-retail-and-more

Published: February 26, 2026 18:05

Today, we are pleased to announce that Shader Model 6.9 and other features have been officially released with Agility SDK 1.619 and complementary DXC 1.9.2602.16. Many of these features have been in preview status since 2025. Simultaneously, we are…

PIX 2602.25 and 2602.25-preview - support for new D3D features and misc quality-of-life improvements

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/pix/pix-2602-25

Published: February 26, 2026 18:00

Today we released PIX 2602.25 and 2602.25-preview, which can be downloaded here. These releases include everything in the previous 2601.15 release, plus: 2602.25: includes support for all of

Vector Data in .NET - Building Blocks for AI Part 2

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/vector-data-in-dotnet-building-blocks-for-ai-part-2

Published: February 26, 2026 18:00

Welcome back to the building blocks for AI in .NET series! In part one, we explored Microsoft Extensions for AI (MEAI) and how it provides a unified interface for working with large language models. Today, we're diving into the second b

Fence Barriers: Fine-Grained GPU Synchronization in Direct3D 12

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/fence-barriers-fine-grained-gpu-synchronization-in-direct3d-12

Published: February 26, 2026 17:58

Introducing Fence Barriers We are excited to share the preview release of Fence Barriers (Tier-1), a new capability now available in AgilitySDK 1.719-preview (https://devblogs.mic

D3D12 Shader Execution Reordering

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/shader-execution-reordering

Published: February 26, 2026 17:55

Now officially released, Shader Execution Reordering (SER) is an addition to DirectX Raytracing that enables application shader code inform hardware how to find coherency across rays so they can be sorted to execute better in parallel.  SER support is a…

D3D12 Opacity Micromaps

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/d3d12-opacity-micromaps

Published: February 26, 2026 17:55

DirectX Raytracing (DXR) now supports Opacity Micromaps (OMMs), enabling hardware to handle alpha tested geometry more efficiently than relying only on costly AnyHit shader invocations. At GDC 2025 DXR 1.2 was announced including OMMs, and you can see it…

Azure SDK Release (February 2026)

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/azure-sdk/azure-sdk-release-february-2026

Published: February 26, 2026 16:00

Thank you for your interest in the new Azure SDKs! We release new features, improvements, and bug fixes every month. Subscribe to our Azure SDK Blog RSS Feed to get notified when a new release is available. You can find links to packages, code, and docs on…

Intercepting messages inside Is­Dialog­Message, installing the message filter

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260226-00/?p=112090

Published: February 26, 2026 15:00

Last time, we saw that one way to intercept the ESC in the standard dialog message loop is to use your own dialog message loop. However, you might not be able to do this, say, becau

Measuring actual AI Impact for Engineering with Apache DevLake

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/all-things-azure/measuring-actual-ai-impact-for-engineering-with-apache-devlake

Published: February 26, 2026 10:06

If you want to skip the explain and get started super quick with adoption + impact insights, use gh-devlake to deploy a GitHub Copilot impact dashboard in a few CLI commands. So! You've rolled out GitHub Copilot to your engineering teams. You've got the…

Visual Studio February Update

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-february-update

Published: February 24, 2026 22:16

This month’s Visual Studio update continues our focus on helping you move faster and stay in flow, with practical improvements across AI assistance, debugging, testing, and modernization. Building on the momentum from January’s editor updates, the February…

Improved Python (PyPi/uvx) support in Azure MCP Server

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/azure-sdk/azure-mcp-server-better-python-support

Published: February 24, 2026 16:00

We're excited to announce improved Python support for the Azure Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server! Python developers can now install and run Azure MCP Server directly from PyPI using familiar tools like uvx and pip. Whether you're

Customizing the ways the dialog manager dismisses itself: Isolating the Close pathway

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260224-00/?p=112082

Published: February 24, 2026 15:00

We started by exploring the signals the dialog manager uses for dismissing a dialog. Now we can use that information to customize the dismiss behavior. Let's start with a diagr

Use Windows on-device AI in your Electron app

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/ifdef-windows/use-windows-on-device-ai-in-your-electron-app

Published: February 23, 2026 18:18

Last year we published AI Dev Gallery, an open-source app full of interactive Windows AI examples. A common follow-up question from Electron developers has been: “How can we build similar on-device AI experiences in our Electron

Customizing the ways the dialog manager dismisses itself: Detecting the ESC key, second (failed) attempt

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20260223-00/?p=112080

Published: February 23, 2026 15:00

Last time, we saw that Get­Async­Key­State is not the way to detect whether the ESC key was down at the time the current input