Monthly Update #124 for Office 365 for IT Pros Available for Download

The Office 365 for IT Pros team is delighted to announce the availability of the October 2025 update for Office 365 for IT Pros (2026 edition). This is monthly update #124. Current subscribers can download the updated EPUB and PDF files from their Gumroad.com account or by using the View content link in their receipt. See our FAQ for more information about how to download updates.

We’ve also updated the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook, which is now at version 16.4. The updated PowerShell EPUB and PDF files are available at the same location as the Office 365 for IT Pros book files. The paperback version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell has also been updated and is available on a print-on-demand basis from Amazon.

October Updates and the AI Effect

As usual, a bunch of changes are spread across the book chapters, details of which are in our change log. One thing that’s becoming increasingly notable is the growing percentage of Microsoft 365 message center notifications that relate to AI instead of updates to workloads like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams.

It’s easy to understand why this is so. First, many of the Microsoft 365 workloads are very mature and already feature-rich, so less opportunity exists to add new functionality. Second, Microsoft’s development attention is obviously focused on adding as much AI-driven features to applications as possible to encourage customers to buy Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses.

The focus on AI gives us a challenge in deciding how much attention we should pay to Copilot features. We know that many Microsoft 365 tenants don’t use Copilot because the licenses are too expensive, they’ve chosen a different solution (like ChatGPT), or simply don’t see the value of AI in their environment at this point. While adding more Copilot content to the book might delight some tenants, it reduces the value of the book to other tenants.

Our current approach is to include Copilot content where it matters to tenant administration. An example is the configuration of the DLP policy to prevent Copilot Chat including content from sensitive documents in its responses. On the other hand, Copilot features that are user-centric in apps, like the facilitator agent in Teams, are usually not covered in the book. There are many of these features spread across Office and other apps. In addition, the features are in a period of rapid evolution, so documenting their use would occupy lots of time that could otherwise be used to cover topics of more general interest.

As AI becomes more embedded in administration (the initial skills available in Copilot for SharePoint Admin are a poor example of what will increasingly happen), we’ll probably change our guidelines, but that’s our current thinking.

Fixing the PDF Stamping Problem

As many of our subscribers know, Gumroad has struggled to fix a bug in the routine that stamps subscriber email addresses on our PDF files. The symptom is that the PDF is unavailable for download because it is “being prepared.” This doesn’t happen for all PDF downloads, but it happened enough to be a royal pain. Subscribers affected by the problem had to contact us, and the only workaround we had was to reissue the receipt. This action kicked off the PDF stamping routine and most of the time, it was enough to make the PDF available.

The good news is that we think Gumroad has fixed the problem by rewriting the PDF stamping routine. Every month in the recent past we have dealt with several subscribers who hit the problem. We’ll soon know if the Gumroad fix is effective. Fingers and toes are firmly crossed.

On to November 2025

As usual, we have started work on next month’s update (#125). Given that the Ignite conference is in the second half of November, there might be fewer changes to process. Then again, there’s always change in Microsoft 365, so we expect to be busy.