The “Windows Development Environment” (WDE), a free virtual machine offered by Microsoft, has finally received an update. Microsoft postponed the release of version 2403, which was scheduled to launch in March, for unspecified reasons. The most recent Windows 11 virtual machines are available for download on the official website. As usual, they come in four prebuilt versions for VMware, Parallels (macOS), Hyper-V Gen 2, and VirtualBox, which are compatible with various virtualization programs.
Version 2403 of the Windows Development Environment is based on Windows 11 build 22621.3296—the Patch Tuesday release from March 2024. Moment 5 capabilities are not included in WDE 2403 (yet; this month’s version is still optional). However, you can quickly update WDE 2403 by using KB5035942.
Approximately 70GB of free storage space and 8GB of memory are needed for each virtual machine. They are available for free use until June 19, 2024. After the current version expires, you will need to update to a newer one because they do not support activation with license keys. Expired virtual machines will shut down every hour, start to give you activation messages, and change their desktop backgrounds to black. Furthermore, ARM versions of Microsoft’s official Windows 11 virtual machines are not offered.
The following is included in the Windows Development Environment version 2403:
- Examining Windows 11 Enterprise
- Enabled UWP,.NET Desktop, Azure, and Windows App SDK for C# workloads in Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition
- Ubuntu installed with Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 enabled
- Installed Windows Terminal
- Developer mode is on.