Microsoft Azure Storage Emulator is a tool that emulates Azure Blob, Queue, and Table services for local development purposes. You can test your application against the storage services locally without creating an Azure subscription or incurring any costs. When you’re satisfied with how your application works in the emulator, you can switch to the real one using an Azure storage account in the cloud. For more information on how to use Microsoft Azure Storage Emulator, click here.

Default installation path

By default Azure Storage Emulator is installed here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\Storage Emulator

How to check which version of Azure Storage Emulator you are using

In the command prompt, run the following command:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\Storage Emulator\AzureStorageEmulator.exe

Version history and what's used in D365FO

You can check what has changed in Azure Storage Emulator here. D365 throughout its life cycle for the past few years, used the following versions of Azure Storage Emulator 4.0.0.0, 5.7.0.0, 5.10.0.0. We made a backup of the mentioned versions, which can be downloaded here.

How does D365FO OneBox machine run Azure Storage Emulator?

Azure Storage Emulator is not designed to run as a Windows Service. Therefore, it is started with Microsoft Schedule Tasks at system start-up on the D365FO OneBox machine so that it is always available. For more details on how it’s being started, see the Task Scheduler Library by searching for the DynamicsStartAzureStorageEmulator task.

How to upgrade Azure Storage Emulator in D365FO developer OneBox machine?

The easiest way to upgrade Azure Storage Emulator is to download the latest setup file here. You can also upgrade the emulator manually by copying the right version files from here to the local machine folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Azure\Storage Emulator.

Steps to update:

1. Stop the process AzureStorageEmulator.exe in Windows Task Manager.
2. Backup the database file pairs (see the next chapter) by copying the files to your preferred backup location.
3. Update the Azure Storage Emulator.
4. Restore the database file pairs by copying them back and renaming the files to have the same version as the currently installed Azure Storage Emulator (see the next chapter).
5. Restart your computer.

Get back the data from the previous version of Azure Storage Emulator in D365FO

The Azure Storage Emulator process runs under the Windows System Account. It uses Microsoft SQL Server Local DB to store data by default and the database files are located here: C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile. Each version creates its own database file pairs (database and log file). Depending on the version of Azure Storage Emulator installed, you can find the following files in the default database path:

• Version 5.10: AzureStorageEmulatorDb510.mdf and AzureStorageEmulatorDb510.log
• Version 5.7: AzureStorageEmulatorDb57.mdf and AzureStorageEmulatorDb57.log

When you upgrade Azure Storage Emulator, you can copy the old database files to the same location and rename them to match the version of Azure Storage Emulator currently installed.