Microsoft is preparing to permanently remove the WMIC command-line utility from Windows 11, which has been present in the operating system since Windows XP. This change will actually have no impact on the average user, but may break the operation of older scripts that use WMIC for management and automation.
Image source: Microsoft
According to this publication’s understanding computer worldIn Windows 11 preview update KB5120998, Microsoft has begun to remove the wmic.exe executable file from the system. This change affects versions 24H2 and 25H2. At the same time, the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) technology itself that runs WMIC will continue to be supported, so we’re talking about abandoning that utility rather than the underlying management system.
WMIC allows you to obtain information about hardware components, BIOS, and other computer settings, as well as perform management operations from the command line. Therefore, it can be used not only manually, but also in automated scripts, including batch files, PowerShell scripts, startup and login tasks, scheduled jobs, monitoring tools, and legacy installation and deployment packages. If such a script directly accesses wmic.exe, the corresponding command will no longer be executed after the update is installed.
WMIC’s abandonment is not unexpected. Microsoft declared the utility obsolete back in 2024 and gradually started removing it from Windows, while new versions of the operating system may have been released without it. This change will now also affect computers where WMIC was stored after a previous update, so administrators using the old script will need to check for compatibility beforehand and replace the call to this utility.
As a modern alternative, Microsoft offers PowerShell, which can still retrieve WMI data and automate administrative operations. It is reported that the removal of WMIC is only one of the changes in the preliminary update KB5120998. At the same time, Microsoft is testing the ability to freely position taskbars on any edge of the monitor, new options to resize the Start menu, updated Windows search and other security features, including administrator protections.
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