February 2025 Update for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 Edition)

The Office 365 for IT Pros writing team is delighted to announce that monthly update #116 is now available. This is the sixth monthly update for Office 365 for IT Pros (2025 edition). Subscribers can download the updated files from their Gumroad.com account or by using the View content link in the receipt emailed after taking out a subscription (Figure 1). That link always downloads the latest book files.

Our change log lists the details of the changes made in update #116 and the other monthly updates. For more information about fetching updates, see our FAQ.

Update #8 for Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell

As previously announced, we released update #8 for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook on January 27, 2025. Office 365 for IT Pros subscribers can download the updated PDF and EPUB files for the PowerShell book using the same link as they use to fetch the other book updates. Regretfully, we can’t update the print (paperback) version of Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell that’s sold on an on-demand basis through Amazon. It’s kind of hard to take back print copies, remove all the updated pages, and paste new content into the book.

Dealing with Stamped PDFs

Some of our subscribers have reported problems downloading their copies of the PDF file from Gumroad.com. The symptom is that although the file is visible to them, the button to download the file is greyed out. This can happen for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook or the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell book, or both.

Each PDF is stamped with the subscriber’s email address. This is done automatically by a background process run on Gumroad’s servers. We are a special case because we issue monthly updates, and each update requires Gumroad to restamp the PDFs. The problem appears to be caused by the background process failing to stamp copies for some subscribers, and because a stamped copy is unavailable, the download button is disabled in Gumroad’s UI.

We have reported the issue several times to Gumroad. Their head of development assures us that a permanent fix has been found and is being deployed. However, we know of at least one instance where a subscriber was unable to download the PDFs for update #116. If you encounter the problem, please send email to support AT Gumroad,com to report that you need help to download your PDF. In the message, be clear that the issue is with the stamped PDF being unavailable for download. The Gumroad support team is pretty responsive and will help you to get the files.

Agents Simpler to Create than Spreadsheets

Lots of change continues across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. I was taken by Satya Nadella’s assertion that Microsoft wants to make agents as easy to build as creating an Excel spreadsheet (remarks after Microsoft’s FY25 Q2 results). On the one hand, being able to create intelligent agents to get your work done sounds marvelous. On the other, I wonder how tenant administrators are going to cope with a flood of no-code or low-code agents created by users. It seems like we have been here before when Microsoft launched new tools without a full lifecycle framework to support creation, deployment, and ongoing management. Basic questions like what happens to agents created by a user account when that person leaves the organization remain unanswered. I sure hope that we’re not heading for choppy waters as the delights of AI-driven tooling unfolds.

Just another thing to keep on the to-do list for busy Microsoft 365 tenant administrators!