I am pleased to inform that Windows Azure SDK 1.4 has been released as could be seen from Windows Azure Team Blog announcement.

What’s new in SDK 1.4

Well, I can say that there’re not many changes as the update from SDK 1.2 to 1.3.

Windows Azure SDK 1.4 Refresh is primarily a stability release addressing the below issues.

• Resolved an issue that caused full IIS fail when the web.config file was set to read-only.
• Resolved an issue that caused full IIS packages to double in size when packaged.
• Resolved an issue that caused a full IIS web role to recycle when the diagnostics store was full.
• Resolved an IIS log file permission Issue which caused diagnostics to be unable to transfer IIS logs to Windows Azure storage.
• Resolved an issue preventing csupload to run on x86 platforms.
• User errors in the web.config are now more easily diagnosable.
• Enhancements to improve the stability and robustness of Remote Desktop to Windows Azure Roles.

This finally solves the “CommunicationObjectFaultedException was unhandled” that I mentioned here.

New Features

Along with the new SDK, there’re also some new features enabled:

• Windows Azure Connect:
  • Multiple administrator support on the Admin UI.
  • An updated Client UI with improved status notifications and diagnostic capabilities.
  • The ability to install the Windows Azure Connect client on non-English versions of Windows.
• Windows Azure CDN:
  • Windows Azure CDN for Hosted Services: Developers can now use the Windows Azure Web and VM roles as”origin” for objects to be delivered at scale via the Windows Azure CDN. Static content in a website can be automatically edge-cached at locations through out the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America to provide maximum bandwidth and lower latency delivery of website content to users.
  • Serve secure content from the Windows Azure CDN: A new checkbox option in the Windows Azure management portal enables delivery of secure content via HTTPS through any existing Windows Azure CDN account.

Grab and download it here.

It’s finally out now.

Download

What’s New for version 1.3:

• Virtual Machine (VM) Role (Beta):Allows you to create a custom VHD image using Windows Server 2008 R2 and host it in the cloud.
• Remote Desktop Access: Enables connecting to individual service instances using a Remote Desktop client.
• Full IIS Support in a Web role: Enables hosting Windows Azure web roles in a IIS hosting environment.
• Elevated Privileges: Enables performing tasks with elevated privileges within a service instance.
• Virtual Network (CTP): Enables support for Windows Azure Connect, which provides IP-level connectivity between on-premises and Windows Azure resources.
• Diagnostics: Enhancements to Windows Azure Diagnostics enable collection of diagnostics data in more error conditions.
• Networking Enhancements: Enables roles to restrict inter-role traffic, fixed ports on InputEndpoints.
• Performance Improvement: Significant performance improvement local machine deployment.

Windows Azure Tools for Microsoft Visual Studio also includes:

• C# and VB Project creation support for creating a Windows Azure Cloud application solution with multiple roles.
• Tools to add and remove roles from the Windows Azure application.
• Tools to configure each role.
• Integrated local development via the compute emulator and storage emulator services.
• Running and Debugging a Cloud Service in the Development Fabric.
• Browsing cloud storage through the Server Explorer.
• Building and packaging of Windows Azure application projects.
• Deploying to Windows Azure.
• Monitoring the state of your services through the Server Explorer.
• Debugging in the cloud by retrieving IntelliTrace logs through the Server Explorer.

Also…

With new management portal (Silverlight-based)

Ability to remote desktop over there