Windows Dev Home is being discontinued in May this year

In May 2023, Microsoft unveiled Dev Home, a new tool designed to make developers’ lives easier. It promised to streamline the tedious process of setting up development environments, offering features like app installations, repository cloning, and system monitoring — all in one place. For developers, they finally had a tool that could save them hours of setup time. But fast forward to today, and the mood has shifted. Microsoft has revealed that Dev Home will be retired in May 2025, leaving many wondering what happened to the tool that was supposed to be a game-changer.

When Dev Home launched, it was hailed as a developer’s dream. Built by the same team behind fan favorites like Windows Terminal, PowerToys, and Windows Package Manager (WinGet), Dev Home was designed to be a one-stop shop for developers. It offered:

• Machine configuration: A tool to set up local or remote environments with ease.
• GitHub integration: Widgets to track issues, pull requests, and repositories directly from your desktop.
• Customizable dashboards: Developer-focused widgets for monitoring system resources like CPU, GPU, and memory usage.
• Dev drives: A new storage volume option optimized for performance, promising up to a 30% boost in file-intensive tasks.

Microsoft even integrated Dev Home into the Windows Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE), allowing users to select “Development” as their primary use case during setup. It was clear Microsoft wanted Dev Home to be the go-to tool for developers on Windows.

Despite its promising start, Microsoft is now warning users that Dev Home will be discontinued in May 2025. This comes as a surprise, especially since the tool is barely two years old. According to Microsoft, a subset of Dev Home’s features will be moved to other locations, though the company hasn’t specified which features will survive or where they’ll end up.

Interesingly, I don’t see this warning on my end.

This leaves developers in a tricky spot. Many have come to rely on Dev Home’s convenience, and the idea of migrating to yet another tool (or set of tools) is less than appealing. It’s like being told your favorite coffee shop is closing, but don’t worry — they’ll still sell the muffins… somewhere else.

For now, Dev Home users have until May 2025 to enjoy the tool before it rides off into the sunset. Microsoft’s promise to migrate some features to other locations offers a glimmer of hope, but the lack of clarity is frustrating. Will the beloved GitHub widgets find a new home? Will Dev Drives live on? Only time will tell.

What are your thoughts on Dev Home’s retirement? Are you sad to see it go, or are you excited for what’s next? Let us know in the comments!