What’s Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT)? How to Disable?

What Is Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool

MSDT stands for Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool. It is a service in Windows that is used by Microsoft technical support agents to remotely analyze diagnostic data to fix and repair issues. This tool can collect the critical system and logging information that helps diagnose problems fast and offer solutions.

This tool is not similar to other diagnostic tools. You cannot run Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool yourself – when you running this tool, a message appears to ask you to enter a passkey provided by your support professional.

You need to talk to a Microsoft technician about your computer problem and he needs logs of what is going on. Then, this technician gives you a passkey. Only in this situation, you can use MSDT with the given passkey. Then, this tool can track what you are doing on the PC and send data to Microsoft for diagnostics.

MSDT is compatible with Windows 11/10/8/7. Then, how to run Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool on your PC? It is easy to open this tool. Just go to click the search icon in Windows, type msdt, and click the result to run this command. Enter the passkey and start the diagnostic by following the on-screen instructions.

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How to Diagnose Your Computer Without MSDT

If you don’t want a technician to offer you the passkey but want to diagnose your computer, you can do it. Just use System Diagnostic Report not Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool.

Press Win + R to open the Run command, type perfmon /report to the text box, and click OK. You see a popup to show you this tool is collecting data, which will take about 60 seconds. This will create a report that contains suggestions for ways to maximize performance and streamline system operation. You can run perfmon to the Run window and go to Reports > System > System Diagnostics to view the report.

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Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool Vulnerability – Disable MSDT

It is troublesome to use MSDT to diagnose your computer since you are asked to type in a passkey. In addition, Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool is vulnerable to various threats. Many hackers use the vulnerability of MSDT to run arbitrary code with the calling app’s permissions, install programs, create new accounts in the context allowed by the user’s rights, change, view, or delete data, etc.

In recent years, MSDT vulnerability is abused. In 2022, two vulnerabilities – Follina and DogWalk were found by security researchers. Perhaps you have heard of the influence caused by them.

To prevent your Windows from Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool vulnerability, you can choose to disable MSDT. Just open Command Prompt with admin rights, type reg delete HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ms-msdt /f to the CMD window, and press Enter.

Microsoft to Depart Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool

According to users, it gives an announcement through Windows 11 Dev Build 25276 – Microsoft is planning to give up the famous Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool by 2025. Twitter users may notice this change. When opening MSDT in Windows 11, you may see the message Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) will be retired by 2025.

This change may be related to the release of Windows 12. Don’t worry and it may be a welcome change in terms of security.

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Final Words

That’s information about Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool. If you want to diagnose your computer, you need to discuss with technicians to get a passkey and run MSDT. Due to its vulnerability, you can choose to disable it. Soon, it will be put to rest before Windows 12.