8.4.1

release date july 14, 2026 this patch release delivers bug fixes and introduces the first phase of an enhanced global search experience as a preview behind a feature flag enhanced global search (preview) feature flagged this feature is disabled by default enable via the pr865 enhancedglobalsearch feature flag when ready activate's search has been significantly reworked to address long standing limitations the existing search only shows results in a small dropdown from the header bar when enabled, the new search builds on that familiar experience with a full page results view and substantially improved search quality a new "show all results" option now appears at the bottom of the existing search dropdown clicking it opens the full page search results view the dropdown search continues to work as before for quick lookups the underlying search algorithm has been improved across the board users should find items more easily, even with imprecise queries, partial terms, or special characters like hyphens and apostrophes that previously broke search entirely results are ranked by relevance with better matching logic the results page shows all matches with pagination, and provides sort and filter controls for narrowing results by object type and other attributes each result includes context text explaining why it matched the query, making it easier to identify the right item in a large result set a new search analytics dashboard is available at /search/analytics when the flag is enabled this gives administrators visibility into popular search queries and how often they are used failed searches where users found no results, highlighting gaps in content or naming query volume over time, showing trends in search usage warnings when searches produce unexpected results or hit configuration limits this information helps administrators understand what users are looking for and where the search experience can be improved through better naming, synonyms, or content organisation the web ui also exposes a read only view of search index settings, boosting rules, and synonym configuration this allows administrators to review the current search configuration without needing access to desktop studio editing capabilities are planned for 8 4 2 this is the first phase of an incremental rollout upcoming work in 8 4 2 includes advanced search with field specific filters and boolean operators (the toggle is present but disabled in 8 4 1) editable search configuration via the web ui migration of the header dropdown to the new search api, bringing the improved algorithm, duplicate collapsing, history/favourites/people suggestions, and visibility checks into the dropdown itself index time expression evaluation, resolving display description expressions during indexing rather than at query time for faster results date sort and expired content toggle, re enabled once the rebuilt index confirms all data is populated enable the feature flag in non production environments to evaluate the new experience distribution list approvers when a distribution list has no approver or owner collection configured, the platform now returns an empty collection instead of null this prevents errors in downstream workflows that enumerate approvers this fix is enabled by default (flag pr40441 fixeddlresourceapproversreturningnull) and can be disabled via parameter override if needed child mailbox deletion the error message displayed when attempting to delete a child mailbox has been updated to be more descriptive and actionable, helping administrators understand why the operation cannot proceed new feature flags (disabled by default) the following enhancements are delivered in this release but are not active by default they must be explicitly enabled via their feature flag parameter they will be enabled by default in a future release once validated across patch releases enhanced global search (pr 865) full page search results, improved algorithm, partial matching, analytics dashboard, and read only configuration viewer (see above) fixed job properties stale age (pr 41996) the job age text on the job properties page now refreshes correctly on browser reload instead of showing a cached value fixed textbox encoded ampersand (pr 40292) textbox controls display ampersands and other special characters correctly instead of showing the html encoded form fixed sticky value editor in studio (pr 40664) changing a parameter's type in desktop studio no longer leaves the previous inline value editor stuck on screen fixed xpath exception for apostrophes (pr 4253) the "add to package" operation no longer fails when parameter names contain apostrophes fixed optional panel switch email/text (pr 4063) email and plain text rendering of optional panel controls in "switch" display mode now correctly outputs the label and true/false value fixed dl resource approvers null (pr 40441) returns an empty collection instead of null from dlresource approvers unlike other flags in this release, this one is enabled by default as it corrects a defect that can cause a runtime exception general bug fixes & maintenance internal code quality improvements including updated string split operations and documentation corrections upgrade notes no prerequisite changes from 8 4 0 standard upgrade applies all other prerequisites remain the same ( net 8 asp net core runtime windows hosting bundle, desktop runtime, and webview2 runtime)