What you need to know
- Microsoft Build 2021 wrapped up today.
- The company announced several new features for developers of Windows 10, Microsoft Teams apps, and more.
- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also teased the future of Windows.
Microsoft Build 2021 is the biggest event of the year for developers who work with Windows or Microsoft products. The event wraps up today, and to save you some time, we've gathered together the biggest announcements from the entire conference. Microsoft announced several new tools for developers and even teased the future of Windows, so there's plenty to catch up on.
Microsoft helps developers make Windows 10 apps
Microsoft announced the Project Reunion 0.8 preview at Build this year. It brings .NET 5 support and better WinUI 3 and WebView2 support. All of the tools in Project Reunion help developers create Windows 10 apps, even if they come from different starting points.
WinUI and WebView2 bring modern technologies that let developers use Microsoft Edge's rendering engine for web-based content. With support for .NET 5 apps, developers can use Windows Presentation Foundation and Windows Forms app.
Project Reunion 0.8 is another step forward for Windows app development, and it helps unify the development process for Win32 and UWP apps.
Edge becomes the 'best performing browser on Windows 10'
Microsoft Edge has seen some large changes and new features over the last year. Microsoft broke them down at Build at in a blog post. Just since last year's Build, Microsoft rolled out WebView2, PWAs to the Microsoft Store, and made over 5,300 commits that have been accepted to the Chromium project.
On top of the highlighted features from the last year, Microsoft claimed that with the release of Microsoft Edge 91 next week that it will be "the best performing browser on Windows 10."
The crux of those performance claims are Startup boost and sleeping tabs, both of which help the browser run quickly without eating up system resources.
Windows Package Manager comes out of preview
After a year of preview testing, Microsoft released Windows Package Manager 1.0. The tool allows people to easily install and uninstall packages and apps on Windows 10.
Windows Package Manager is an excellent tool for IT admins that need to manage multiple PCs. It also helps anyone get a PC up and running with all the programs they need after a fresh install of Windows 10.
Windows Insiders and people that signed up for the Windows Package Manager Insider group already had access to the tool in preview, but it's now rolling out to everyone.
Microsoft Teams gains collaborative experiences
Microsoft Teams continues to be a focus of Microsoft. The platform has millions of daily active users, and Microsoft is working on tools that developers can use to help Teams users.
At Build, Microsoft announced new options for building Collaborative apps in Teams; shared staged integration, Together mode extensibility, and media APIs and resource-specific content. Microsoft also announced new tools for sharing content across Outlook and Microsoft Teams.
The new Teams features focus on allowing people to work together in real-time across different devices.
Satya Nadella teases the future of Windows
The biggest news from the week may not have been anything Microsoft showed off or even formally announced. At Build, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella teased a major update to Windows during his keynote. Nadella was likely hinting at the upcoming Sun Valley update for Windows 10.
During his keynote, Nadella explained that the company will soon "share one of the most significant updates to Windows of the past decade." The CEO called it the "next generation of Windows" and has personally been using it for months. It may be noteworthy that Nadella didn't refer to it as "Windows 10," but we'll have to wait for an official announcement.
