Microsoft revealed last year it had plans to pull the plug on support for its entire WMR platform on Windows. Now, with the launch of Windows 11 2024 Update yesterday, those VR headsets have essentially been bricked.

Initially kicked off in 2017, Microsoft was well positioned to make Windows a home to a fleet of PC VR headsets, which were notably some of the first headsets with inside-out tracking, including entrants from Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Samsung.

Served by its ‘Windows Mixed Reality’ software platform, which included baked-in support for the Windows operating system, WMR headset users also had access to all of SteamVR’s content. Up until now, that is.

“Windows Mixed Reality is deprecated and will be removed in Windows 11, version 24H2,” Microsoft said back in December 2023. “This deprecation includes the Mixed Reality Portal app, Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR, and Steam VR Beta.”

HP Reverb G2 | Photo by Road to VR

Provided you don’t update to the 24H2 version of Windows 11 and remain on version 23H2, you’ll still be able to play SteamVR content through November 2026. After that, WMR headsets will no longer receive security updates, non-security updates, bug fixes, technical support, or online technical content updates, Microsoft said.

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While many users of first-gen WMR headsets have likely moved on, the latest addition to the platform, HP Reverb G2, was released in 2020 as a competitor to Oculus Rift S and Valve Index, noted at the time for its impressive display clarity and improved tracking capabilities over other WMR headsets.

This comes amid Microsoft announcing it’s deprecating its other big XR hardware platform, HoloLens 2, which is now discontinued, offering security patches until December 31st, 2027.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has drawn closer to Meta with the revelation that Quest will soon have automatic pairing with Windows 11, putting it closer to feature parity with Vision Pro’s compatibility with Mac.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Ondrej

    What happened to decades of backwards compatibility that was always putting Apple to shame?

    Are they trying to be new Google?

  • Sofian

    People will need to remember that when MS tries to re enter the VR market.

    • LP

      It's ironic that on MS blog they write that they will be carbon negative by 2030.

  • eadVrim

    Fortunately I still have Windows 10 cause my Win11 consider my PC CPU iold for it, depite all VR PC games work good.
    In other side no one would trsut MS anymore.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    Out of curiosity I checked how many people still use WMR headsets in the current Steam hardware survey: 3.55%, putting them at #6, before Rift CV1 and Pico 4. And only about 50% more than PSVR2 at #9 with 2.38%, astonishing popular as a PCVR HMD only weeks after the PC adapter became available, gaining 2.03% last month.

    I wonder how Microsoft dropping WMR will impact negative reviews on Steam. One of the problems for VR developers there has always been incompatibilities between HMDs, with people leaving negative reviews on games not updated since 2016 for not properly working with the Index controllers from 2019. Barely working WMR support has also been criticized, and you are lucky if people are that specific instead of just describing parts that didn't work, without ever mentioning which HMD they were using.

    It's understandable that users want games to work with their hardware, but also difficult for smaller developers to test everything. Especially when they had to deal not only with the "fixed config" Rift and Vive headsets plus follow ups, later joined by also "fixed" Index and Quest 1/2/3, but also a whole class of not identical HMDs from different vendors like with WMR. Fully compatible in theory, but how do you know without testing all? This was already bad due to WMR never gaining a huge market share or getting proper support from Microsoft, making the extra effort hard to justify. It will get even worse if developers cannot even connect the HMDs to their machines anymore for a quick test.