Microsoft's latest addition to the Windows 11 scrapheap is the WMI command line utility
It may be the longest, slowest death of any deprecated piece of software, but Microsoft is inching closer to the complete killing off of the WMI command line utility.
It is now eight years since Microsoft deprecated the Windows Management Instrumentation Command line (WMIC), but the utility was converted into a Feature on Demand in Windows 11 22H2. However, starting now in Insider builds -- and later in the year for release builds -- WMIC will be disabled by default.
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The change is one that will not affect the vast majority of Windows 11 users. Providing a command-line interface for Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the WMI command line (WMIC) utility can be easily replaced with PowerShell.
In a blog post announcing the next step in the deprecation process, Microsoft says:
Starting January 29, 2024, you'll find Windows Management Instrumentation Command line (WMIC) feature "disabled by default" on the insider build of Windows 11. If your application is dependent on WMIC, please migrate away from it using this post as a guide. Let's catch up on the latest and learn how you can use PowerShell and programmatic ways to query WMIC today.
The deprecation of old tools and features is a task that Microsoft frequently undertakes. Explaining this latest decision, the company says: "The WMIC tool is superseded by Windows PowerShell for WMI. We've been heavily investing in PowerShell in the past few years. The new tools provide a more efficient way of querying WMI. Removing a deprecated component helps reduce complexity while keeping you secure and productive. It will be removed from Windows in a future release".
Any user or developer with an app that is dependent on WMIC is advised to use WMIC workarounds such as PowerShell or programmatically query WMI.
More information, examples and instructions are available here.
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