7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

{* SOFTWARE *}

Visual Studio Code Server untethers developers

from their workstations
Install here, write code there without getting bogged down with SSH or
HTTPS
Richard Speed 16

Fri 8 Jul 2022 // 16:00 UTC

Microsoft has tossed its hat into the increasingly crowded ring of code-
anywhere developer tools with a private preview of Visual Studio Code
Server.

The product follows the Remote Development extensions for Visual Studio
Code, which permitted apps to be developed using a local copy of the IDE
and a "remote" Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Running on machines managed over SSH followed a year later and most
recently GitHub Codespaces and Visual Studio Code for the Web turned up.

While the latter two require surrender to the tender mercies of Microsoft or its
code-shack GitHub, the release of Visual Studio Code Server (the backend
service that makes the magic happen) means that you can pop the server on
your developer workstation (or Virtual Machine in the cloud) and run it through
the browser using Visual Studio Code for the Web without faffing around with
SSH or HTTPS, "although you can do that if you want as well," Microsoft
added.

It opens up the possibility of using a browser on a machine that does not

enjoy native Visual Studio Code support, connected to a machine running
Visual Studio Code Server.

• Visual Studio adds ability to edit code in All-in-One Search

• Trying and failing to update Visual Studio? You aren't alone

• Preview 9 of Visual Studio for Mac is out as GA approaches

• Microsoft Visual Studio: Cluttering up developer disks for 25 years

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 1/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

But there are limitations. The private preview is fired up using code-server.
Need something more (like installing extensions) and you'll need to fall back
to the code CLI. You'll also be asked to accept the terms of a license
agreement which permits Microsoft to receive telemetry data, but those using
tools from Redmond likely know what they are signing up for.

There are also plenty of alternatives out there. Gitpod's OpenVSCode Server
springs to mind, as does Coder's code-server (now up to version 4.5).

Overall, the private preview of Visual Studio Code Server is welcome, if a long
time coming. It's also a little symptomatic of Microsoft's scatter-gun approach
to developers as it seeks to leverage the esteem in which Visual Studio Code
is held.

We now await the inevitable rebrand. Visual Studio Team Foundation Server
(a quite different product) was renamed to Azure DevOps Server after all. It
can only be a matter of time before something is plucked out of the ether for
what looks like a very handy developer tool. ®

SHARE 16
Comments

Similar topics
Developer Microsoft Programming Visual Studio Visual Studio Code

Broader topics
Bill Gates IDE Software

Narrower topics
Active Directory Analytics API Azure Bing BSoD Computer Science

Excel Exchange Server Git HoloLens Internet Explorer LinkedIn llvm

Low code Microsoft 365 Microsoft Build Microsoft Edge Microsoft Office

Microsoft Surface Microsoft Teams .NET Office 365 OS/2 Outlook

Patch Tuesday Pluton Programming Language SharePoint Skype

SQL Server Windows Windows 10 Windows 11 Windows 7 Windows 8

Windows Server Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2013 Windows Server 2016 Windows XP

Xbox Xbox 360

Corrections Send us news

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 2/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

Visual Studio adds ability to edit code in All-in-

One Search
Just one more wafer-thin feature to pop in Microsoft's swelling dev suite
Richard Speed Tue 28 Jun 2022 // 16:18 UTC 4

Microsoft has added the ability to edit code while in Visual Studio's All-In-
One Search user interface.

The feature is included in Visual Studio 2022 17.3 Preview 2 and follows
changes to search functionality in the development suite. At the start of
the year, Microsoft introduced indexed Find in Files to speed up the
already rapid searching (compared to Visual Studio 2019 at any rate).

The indexed Find in Files fired up a ServiceHub.IndexingService.exe

process on solution load or folder open which scraped through the files to
construct an index. Worries that the indexer would slug performance like
certain other Microsoft indexing services were alleviated somewhat by
the use of Below Normal operating system priority.

CONTINUE READING

Microsoft delays controversial ban on paid-for

open source, WebKit in app store
Embrace, extend, excuses
Thomas Claburn in San Francisco Fri 8 Jul 2022 // 19:59 UTC 31

The Microsoft Store, an online source for Windows apps and other apps,
was supposed to enact new policies on July 16 that forbid developers
from selling open-source apps that are otherwise available for free and
from distributing browser apps that use Apple's WebKit engine.

But on Friday, Giorgio Sardo, general manager of the Microsoft Store,

indicated Microsoft will delay enforcement in response to the earful
Redmond has been getting from the developer community.

Announced last month, the changes appear to be intended to improve

the Microsoft Store experience. For example, they include a section
forbidding apps that "provide content related to information, news, or
current events in the real world from disseminating misinformation."

CONTINUE READING

Judge rejects another Microsoft appeal against

surplus license reseller suit
Windows giant's UK tentacle still on the hook over pre-owned on-prem
software market dominance
Richard Speed Fri 8 Jul 2022 // 10:45 UTC 18

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 3/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

The stage is set for a courtroom showdown between Brit reseller

ValueLicensing and Microsoft after a judge dismissed the Windows
giant's latest appeal to toss the case about allegations of unfair licensing.

This follows an attempt by Microsoft to get its UK tentacle removed from

the claim brought by ValueLicensing and shift the hearing to Ireland. In
April, Mr Justice Picken disagreed and dismissed Microsoft's challenges.
The company filed an appeal, which was refused by Lord Justice Males
this week.

The reasons for the refusal were blunt. "This is not a case where
Microsoft UK was merely a subsidiary, playing no role in the conduct
alleged to be abusive," the order reads. "Rather, it is contended that it
was itself active in implementing that conduct by marketing the licences
containing the 'Impugned Terms'."

CONTINUE READING

Microsoft cloud exec accused of verbal attack

on staff exits
Tom Keane helped Redmond win JEDI deal, respond to GDPR, and ran
Azure datacenter infrastructure worldwide
Paul Kunert Thu 7 Jul 2022 // 13:45 UTC 26

Microsoft cloud lieutenant Tom Keane is departing the megacorp where

he has spent the past 21 years in various senior roles. He is heading for
the exit a month after featuring in a report about the toxic culture among
company execs.

Keane, a corporate Vice President at Microsoft, started out in the

Consulting Services division in 2001 before becoming group engineering
manager for the System Center and then taking on the same role for
Office 365.

From late 2012 until November last year, Keane was Azure corporate
veep and head of global infrastructure, industry clouds, and data
sovereignty. He oversaw thousands of engineers, product managers, and
data scientists overseeing Microsoft's datacenter estate internationally.

CONTINUE READING

Microsoft rolls back default macro blocks in

Office without telling anyone
Based on 'feedback'. Which one of you asked for this, and why?
Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor Fri 8 Jul 2022 // 03:02 UTC 30

Updated Microsoft appears set to roll back its decision to adopt a default
stance of preventing macros sourced from the internet from running in

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 4/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

Office unless given explicit permission.

The software giant announced the change in February 2022 with a post
that explained how macros written with Visual Basic for Applications are
powerful, but offer a way for criminals to drop malicious payloads onto
the desktop.

The potential for such attacks is hardly new. The infamous Melissa virus
rampaged across the world's mail servers in 1999 thanks to malicious
macros embedded in a Word document. Things got worse over the
years, so in 2016 Microsoft upped the ante with a tool that allowed
admins to define when and where macros were allowed to run. Microsoft
also stopped running macros without first asking users if they really
wanted to do so.

CONTINUE READING

Supply chain blamed amid claims of Azure

capacity issues
Microsoft says it'll move to 'restrict trials and internal workloads to
prioritize growth of existing customers'
Dan Robinson Mon 4 Jul 2022 // 16:26 UTC 34

Microsoft's Azure cloud is having difficulty providing enough capacity to

meet demand, according to some customers, with certain regions said to
refusing new subscriptions for services.

Azure comprises over 200 datacenters globally spread across 60

regions, but reports suggest that over two dozen of these are operating
with limited capacity, and that the cloud and IT giant is being forced to
prioritize resources in order to serve existing customers.

According to technology news site The Information, capacity issues are

affecting Azure datacenters in Washington State in the US as well as
across Europe and Asia, and it claims that server capacity is expected to
remain limited until early next year, citing a Microsoft insider.

CONTINUE READING

Choosing a non-Windows OS on Lenovo

Secured-core PCs is trickier than it should be
What the powers that be have disabled in the BIOS, you must enable
once more
Richard Speed Mon 11 Jul 2022 // 15:30 UTC 20

Lenovo's laptops caused a disturbance last week after a security

engineer found himself unable to boot up a copy of Linux due to
restrictions that are apparently insisted upon by Microsoft.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 5/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

Matthew Garrett, an information security architect, was keen to check out

Lenovo's latest Pluton-equipped wares but found himself unable to boot
Linux from a USB stick "for no obvious reason."

Pluton is Microsoft's latest effort to secure PCs and can act as both a
Trusted Platform Module (TPM) or as a non-TPM security co-processor.
It emerged in 2020, with Microsoft saying Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm
were all onboard. While Acer launched tech with the kit in May, Dell is not
keen and Lenovo started the year saying it wouldn't be turned on by
default.

CONTINUE READING

Chromium's WebRTC zero-day fix arrives in

Microsoft Edge
Update addresses heap buffer overflow and type confusion bugs in
Google's browser engine
Richard Speed Thu 7 Jul 2022 // 16:00 UTC 3

Microsoft has followed Google's lead and issued an update for its Edge
browser following the arrival of a WebRTC zero-day.

The Windows giant uses the Chromium engine in its latest browser. As
such, when something needs urgent fixing in Chrome, one can expect
Edge to follow not far behind. For CVE-2022-2294 and CVE-2022-2295,
a new version of Edge has been pushed out, taking the version number
in the stable channel to 103.0.1264.49.

Most serious of the duo is CVE-2022-2294, a heap buffer overflow in the

open-source real-time comms platform WebRTC, which, according to
Google, is being actively exploited.

CONTINUE READING

Microsoft resorts to Registry hack to keep

Outlook from using Windows 11 search
Only a short-term solution to prevent the OS interfering with email results
Richard Speed Mon 11 Jul 2022 // 12:15 UTC 23

Microsoft has identified Windows Indexing as the culprit for broken

Outlook Search results in Windows 11.

The problem for Outlook Desktop users on Windows 11 is that recent

emails are not showing up in the search results and Windows Indexing
appears to be the culprit.

The indexing service is infamously fragile and when results look a bit
odd, chances are the Windows Indexing options in the Control Panel
might show the service as either paused or running slowly.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 6/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

CONTINUE READING

Microsoft's Dublin datacenter to help take

pressure off Ireland's renewable energy
Grid-interactive UPS tech to feed some power back to the grid from
backup energy storage systems... for a price
Dan Robinson Fri 8 Jul 2022 // 15:15 UTC 15

Microsoft is to deploy its "grid-interactive UPS technology" at the

company's datacenter in Dublin, Ireland, later this year to demonstrate
how such technology may be used to help decarbonize power grids.

The Redmond software giant disclosed last month how it and power
management specialist Eaton were jointly working on technology that
would allow the energy storage systems used for backup power in
datacenters to also help smooth out any variability in the power grid due
to the unpredictability of renewable energy sources.

Now Microsoft is moving to implement this, saying that its datacenter in

Dublin will be a part of the solution to this problem later this year.

CONTINUE READING

ABOUT US

MORE CONTENT

SITUATION PUBLISHING

The Register - Independent news and views for the

tech community. Part of Situation Publishing

SIGN UP TO OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER

Your Work Email Address

SUBSCRIBE

Biting the hand that feeds IT © 1998–2022

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 7/8
7/11/22, 8:56 PM Microsoft releases Visual Studio Code Server preview • The Register

Cookies
Privacy
Ts&Cs

https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/08/vs_code_server/ 8/8