I love Azure Storage, but you likely have figured that out. I noticed something today that I was cognizant about. I was using a computer that I didn’t think I had installed Azure Storage Explorer on before, so I downloaded it. I noticed the downloaded file was: StorageExplorer (1).exe. This means I have downloaded it before. I did a quick sort and realized the file sizes and contents were different. So I did a little digging as I also determined it was installed on the computer in question.
It turns out Azure Storage Explorer does not automatically push the updates to the application; but if you are using the tool and new services or capabilities have been added it is a good idea to update. The current version is 1.12.0; and two new capabilities are added according to the release notes for GPU capabilities (remembering if you chose to restart with GPU acceleration) and macOS notarization. What is more critical to do an update is that there are a lot of fixes in this release. The great thing is you can get all of the updates from GitHub to know *exactly* what was fixed, really transparent. (Examples one and two). You can perform an upgrade of Storage Explorer from the Help Menu:
It is nice that you can read the release notes before you upgrade. The upgrade is smooth and seamless; but I recommend when using this tool organizations have consistent versions of the tool in use. This effectively means it is in the best interest to regularly check on this “check for updates” on the app to ensure that the latest version is in use (read the Known Issues for sure). I can see a situation where an Azure storage account has multiple computers who use Azure Storage Explorer (I think I have it installed in 3 places) and if they are all in different versions; if an issue impacts one version you may have inconsistent behavior across the different connection points.
One easy way to get your head around the updates is to subscribe to the GitHub notification on releases of the Azure Storage Explorer code in Github. This will give you notifications on releases only (or if you want, can be notified of everything). You do need a Github account (it’s OK if you are not a coder, they allow stalkers there) to subscribe as such, shown below:
I recommend keeping this cool tool up to date; which is really critical as new services are added. It’s unclear to me if there would be a critical update on if using the app would give a notification; which is why I’m going to proactively check and be on the lookout like this!
Side note and shameless plug! I’m happy to announce that I have been accepted as speaker at Experts Live in Singapore! I’ll be sharing a lot of knowledge around Azure Storage and Security best practices; much of which I’ve shared here in this blog!
