Get started with Claude in Microsoft Foundry: Review

I'm staring at a screenshot of a deployment screen, and the quiz asks me to recall the name of a button in the picture. This isn't a course, it’s a product manual split into webpages. The whole thing is a tour of what Microsoft Foundry looks like and a list of what Claude can theoretically do inside it. No exercises, no code snippets to run, and no sandbox. You just read descriptions and look at pictures.

It feels like reading the back of a very expensive software box. The module covers how to 'Deploy Claude Models' and 'Develop Claude Apps' by showing you screenshots of the UI where you would click to do those things. But unless you already have a Foundry subscription and are logged in on another monitor, you can't follow along or try anything. It’s a frustrating loop: you need to learn Foundry to justify its cost, but the introductory material assumes you already have access.

I spent more time clicking 'Next' than actually learning. The content is essentially a blog post explaining that, yes, you can use Anthropic models on Microsoft's new platform. If you work at a company that's already paying for Foundry and your boss just asked 'can we use Claude?', this will give you your answer in 15 minutes. For anyone else, especially students trying to build a portfolio, this is a dead end. You walk away knowing a new product combination exists, but with zero hands-on experience to show for it.