Microsoft discontinues diagnostic tool that can automatically solve problems
Microsoft is replacing the legacy troubleshooter Support Diagnostic Tool, the program that allowed Windows to automatically fix problems in the operating system. That will happen in 2025, but some troubleshooters will be replaced earlier.
Microsoft writes on a support page that it wants to remove all legacy troubleshooters from Windows 11 from 2025. This concerns all troubleshooters in Windows, such as the Speech or Keyboard troubleshooter. These are built-in tools that allow Windows to automatically detect problems and in some cases solve them, for example by resetting a driver. All those troubleshooters work on the same underlying platform, the Microsoft Support Diagnostics Tool or MSDT. Microsoft wants to pull the plug on this in the long term. In some cases, the troubleshooter is replaced by the Get Help software, which has approximately the same functionality.
This will definitely happen in 2025. A certain number of troubleshooters will be removed before then. This will happen in 2023 with the next update of Windows 11. That process will be completed in 2024; Over the course of those two years, all troubleshooters must disappear from Windows one by one until all tools are replaced by the end of 2025. This is done with the Get Help app.
Microsoft is removing troubleshooters for audio, Background Intelligent Transfer Service or BITS, Bluetooth, networking, printers, program compatibility, video playback, Windows Media Player, and Windows Update. The removal only happens in the most recent version of Windows 11. Users on version 22H2 or older, or on Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 7, will not be affected.
Instead of an automatic diagnosis and possible repair, users will be sent to Microsoft’s Get Help app in the future. Microsoft does not provide a reason for discontinuing the tool. In the past, vulnerabilities and zero-days have been regularly discovered in MSDT, but it is not known whether this is related.
Update: The piece initially stated that Microsoft is removing the tool completely from Windows 11, but as Loller1 points out, the company will replace the legacy troubleshooters with the Get Help app.