Microsoft discontinues diagnostic tool that can automatically fix 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. It concerns all troubleshooters in Windows, such as the Speech or the Keyboard troubleshooter. These are built-in tools that Windows can use to automatically detect and in some cases solve problems, for example by resetting a driver. All of those troubleshooters operate 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 similar functionality.
That will definitely happen in 2025. A certain number of troubleshooters will be removed before then. This will already happen in 2023 with the next update of Windows 11. That process will be completed in 2024; in the course of those two years, all troubleshooters must disappear from Windows one by one until the end of 2025 all tools are replaced. 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 on 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 directed to Microsoft’s Get Help app in the future. Microsoft gives no 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 completely removing the tool from Windows 11, but as Loller1 points out, the company is going to replace the legacy troubleshooters with the Get Help app.