Weekly Update 16 February 2026 – Lack of M365 News, Legacy User Settings in SPFx, M365 Copilot License & more
This week:
Handling Legacy User Settings in SharePoint Framework
M365 Copilot and the case of the broken license
You can also listen to the audio-only version: Thoughtstuff Podcast – Tom Morgan on Teams Dev: Weekly Update 16 February 2026.
Find all my videos at thoughtstuff.co.uk/videos. You can also subscribe to the audio-only version of these videos, either via iTunes, Spotify or your own podcasting tool.
Transcript (AI-Generated)
Hello and welcome to another weekly update. I hope you’re doing well.
Okay, I take it back what I said a couple of weeks ago about the pace of change of news being back to normal for Microsoft 365. It has been another really quiet week and I think this is interesting – maybe even a little concerning. There’s really been very little posted to the usual places: developer blogs and other Microsoft 365 channels.
I don’t really know why this is. I can speculate – it’s probably a mixture of a few things. One: fewer people may be working at Microsoft now and that’s impacting marketing and developer advocacy. Two: those who remain may be busy working on exciting things, so they don’t have time to post blog updates. Or maybe there’s just genuinely less happening, possibly due to enhanced focus on Copilot core development, which might mean fewer changes on the extensibility layer – where I typically focus.
Whatever the reason, there’s definitely a noticeable change in the level of output. For lots of admins and devs, it may actually be welcome because the pace has been so fast recently.
Even with the slowdown, we’ve got a couple of things to talk about. Paolo Pialorsi, who I mentioned last week for his SharePoint Framework (SPFx) blog on user settings, has followed up with another one, this time discussing legacy user settings in SPFx. I’m not an expert in this area, but the post is really good. It goes through the legacy application model, the new model, and explains why the change matters. There are clear migration guidelines and well-written content – including sample code and a detailed table of contents.
To underscore the point about decreased activity, I checked the official Microsoft 365 Developer Blog – there’s been nothing posted since last week except Paolo’s article. This is unusual; a year ago we would easily have seen multiple posts weekly.
But this slowdown lets us feature other great community content. Loryan Strant, another Microsoft MVP, has a humorous piece titled “Copilot and the Case of the Broken License.” While I usually speak to developers, more developers are now being looked to as AI experts. Loryan’s post discusses edge cases in license management and Copilot behavior that can impact devs and admins alike. It’s worth reading simply because he’s already been through the pain and has useful insights to share.
Lastly, I want to highlight a short but potent blog from Scott Hanselman titled “Is the Craft Dead?” It dives into the existential debate about software development in the age of AI. Scott has been in development for over 35 years, and his thoughts are worth considering. His answer: No, development isn’t dead – but it’s also not unaffected.
If you want my opinion: if you’re a developer and haven’t used AI to make your dev work better or faster, that’s probably a missed opportunity. And if you think your job will vanish because AI can code – that’s not right either. If you don’t believe you bring additional value over what AI can generate, maybe it’s time to improve your skills. Most developers, I think, will find that they can combine their strengths with AI to be even more valuable – whether that’s enhancing AI-generated solutions, ensuring compliance with internal systems, or simply maintaining and improving codebases headed for production.
There’s more and more code, which means we need more and more people who truly understand it.
That’s it from me this week. Let’s see what next week brings. Keep an eye on the news cycle – it could be a temporary lull, or something deeper. I don’t want to overreact or guess at motives. All I can do is point out the change I’ve noticed in publication frequency.
Thanks for watching — have a great week!