Merged PR 44502: Merge branch release/9.0 into internal/release/9.0

#### AI description  (iteration 1)
#### PR Classification
Code update for version management and package dependencies.

#### PR Summary
This pull request updates version management and package dependencies to align with the upcoming release.
- Updated `PrereleaseVersionLabel` for `Aspire.Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL` in `/eng/Versions.props`.
- Updated package versions for `Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos`, `NATS.Net`, and `Azure.Identity` in `/Directory.Packages.props`.

Related work items: #6530, #6537

Author: joperezr

Directory.Packages.props

@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@
     <PackageVersion Include="Azure.Storage.Blobs" Version="12.22.2" />
     <PackageVersion Include="Azure.Storage.Queues" Version="12.20.1" />
     <PackageVersion Include="Microsoft.Azure.AppConfiguration.AspNetCore" Version="8.0.0" />
-    <PackageVersion Include="Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos" Version="3.44.1" />
+    <PackageVersion Include="Microsoft.Azure.Cosmos" Version="3.45.0" />
     <PackageVersion Include="Microsoft.Azure.SignalR" Version="1.28.0" />
     <PackageVersion Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Azure" Version="1.7.6" />
     <!-- Azure Management SDK for .NET dependencies -->
@@ -125,7 +125,7 @@
     <PackageVersion Include="MongoDB.Driver.Core.Extensions.DiagnosticSources" Version="1.5.0" />
     <PackageVersion Include="MySqlConnector.DependencyInjection" Version="2.3.6" />
     <PackageVersion Include="MySqlConnector.Logging.Microsoft.Extensions.Logging" Version="2.1.0" />
-    <PackageVersion Include="NATS.Net" Version="2.5.1" />
+    <PackageVersion Include="NATS.Net" Version="2.5.2" />
     <PackageVersion Include="Npgsql.DependencyInjection" Version="8.0.5" />
     <PackageVersion Include="Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL" Version="$(NpgsqlEntityFrameworkCorePostgreSQLPackageVersion)" />
     <PackageVersion Include="OpenAI" Version="2.0.0" />
@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@
 
     <!-- Pinned versions for Component Governance - Remove when root dependencies are updated -->
     <PackageVersion Include="Azure.Core" Version="1.44.1" />
-    <PackageVersion Include="Azure.Identity" Version="1.12.1" />
+    <PackageVersion Include="Azure.Identity" Version="1.13.1" />
     <!-- https://github.com/Azure/azure-cosmos-dotnet-v3/pull/3313 -->
     <PackageVersion Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="13.0.3" />
     <PackageVersion Include="System.Formats.Asn1" Version="$(SystemFormatsAsn1PackageVersion)" />

eng/Versions.props

@@ -6,6 +6,9 @@
     <PatchVersion>0</PatchVersion>
     <VersionPrefix>$(MajorVersion).$(MinorVersion).$(PatchVersion)</VersionPrefix>
     <PreReleaseVersionLabel>preview.5</PreReleaseVersionLabel>
+    <!-- Aspire.Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL will ship right after our November release, but it has already shipped as rc.1 so
+    we can't 'downgrade' it to preview.5. We will ship it as rc.2 in November and will mark it stable once EF Npgsql dependency ships stable. -->
+    <PrereleaseVersionLabel Condition="'$(MSBuildProjectName)' == 'Aspire.Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL'">rc.2</PrereleaseVersionLabel>
     <!--
       When running package validation as part of the build, we want to ensure we didn't break the API against the previous
       version of each package. The following property points to the package version that should be used as baseline.