Microsoft confirms it's killing MSDT to perhaps make Windows 12 more secure

Update: Microsoft has now formally announced the deprecation of MSDT but it's not a sudden death in 2025.

A concept of Windows 12 — Windows 12 concept art

A few hours ago, Microsoft released the latest build in the Windows 11 Dev Channel. The new build, 25276 adds some new features in Task Manager, and redesigned dialog boxes, among others. However, as usual, new Insider builds often reveal what Microsoft has up its sleeves and its plans for upcoming Windows updates.

Interestingly, it looks like Microsoft has plans to retire the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) two years from now in 2025. Twitter user and Stardock engineer Rafael Rivera noticed the change in the latest build 25276.

25276: Microsoft working on showing a MSDT retirement banner (42606374). Looks like MSDT is dead come 2025.

Points to https://t.co/8uQ2lCdKu1 for more info (currently private). pic.twitter.com/uxNGFU53RA
— Rafael Rivera (@WithinRafael) January 12, 2023

MSDT, in recent years, has been abused by threat actors as it can be exploited to run remote code executions (RCE). Last year, two vulnerabilities, Follina and DogWalk, were discovered by security researchers, one of which received an unofficial patch.

This is right in time for when Windows 12 is expected to release, which is sometime in 2024 as the company has apparently moved back to the three-year cadence. So it's probably going to be a welcome change from the security aspect of Windows 12 if MSDT departs.