Test Base for Microsoft 365 is Now Available

At its Ignite virtual conference this week, Microsoft announced that Test Base for Microsoft 365 is now generally available. Test Base was formerly called Update Staging Lab. It’s an Azure service that helps software makers test their applications remotely and without the need to maintain expensive in-house testing environments.

“Since we announced public preview in July, hundreds of organizations spanning different industry segments and regions have piloted the service and taken advantage of the simplicity of validating the applications against Windows updates,” Microsoft’s Rama Shastri writes in the announcement post. “The service is available for software vendors to validate their apps as well as IT professionals to validate their line-of-business (LOB) applications through an integration with Microsoft Intune.”

Basically, Test Base lets software vendors validate their applications against pre-released Windows security updates and feature releases. It can provide insights into issues that might cause problems for their applications on a new Windows version prior to its release.

Test Base had been in public preview since July 2021. But Microsoft has added some new features for the final release, including an extensible customization SDK, support for Windows Server 2022, and test failure email notifications. And more new features will arrive in the coming months, Microsoft says.

You can learn more about Test Base for Microsoft 365 from the Microsoft website and from the Microsoft Docs website.