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.

    • ViRGiN

      $699 WM-PCVR, 4k per eye, DISPLAY PORT AND PANCAKES!?

      B.R.O. i'm in.

  • 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.

    • Rob

      I also have win10 still because I am to lazy to move over. But fall next year you have to move because win10 wont be supported any longer. I dont have a WMR headset by the way so thats for me not the reason.

      • eadVrim

        Most CPU before 2018 are not supported by Win11

  • 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.

  • ZarathustraDK

    Nice if you're on linux.
    Buy headset supercheap because it has been obsoleted, install envision, set up wmr device, optionally if you have lighthouses you can use those for full body tracking and/or knuckles controllers simultaneously.

    • Star Centurion

      It is incredibly hilarious that the best way to use a WMR headset now is to use Linux.

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    To stop automatic updates on Windows 11, you can do it by stopping Windows update services. Check how to do it below:

    1. Press Windows + R, type services.msc in Run dialog and press Enter to open Windows Services.
    2. Scroll down in the services list and find Windows Update service. Double-click Windows Update service to open its properties window.
    3. Under General tab, next to Startup type option, you can click the drop-down icon to select Disabled option. Click Apply and click OK to apply the changes.

    In this way, it will permanently disable Windows 11 automatic updates.
    If you want to turn on Windows 11 automatic updates again, you can go to Windows Services again to enable the Windows update service.

    • Nothing to see here

      Bad idea. Viruses and malware is a very real and constant threat. Better to install Windows 10 on a separate partition or drive. That way you get security updates for at least another year and can still used your WMR headset.

  • Nothing to see here

    Solution: Install Windows 10 on another drive or partition. Use it to play games on you Windows Mixed Reality headset.

    • Sven Viking

      No need for downvotes. He didn’t say it was a good solution.

      • ViRGiN

        It's not a solution. It's a workaround at best.

        • namekuseijin

          workarounds and tweakings are PC fanbois bread and butter

  • Andrew Jakobs

    I really wonder what lowlevel API's have been scrapped why WMR wouldn't work anymore. I get that the don't support it anymore, but why not leave it in and just not install it by default in a fresh install, just like SMB2.
    Also I wonder how much work it would be to write a native OpenXR/SteamVR driver, shouldn't be that hard.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Implementing OpenXR/SteamVR drivers is in fact very hard, but the Monado project has been working on a fully open source OpenXR runtime since 2019, and recently did that for WMR. For the longest time they only offered 3DoF support for numerous HMDs, addressed as HDMI displays with OpenHMD drivers. They then got experimental 6DoF head tracking, but controller support was missing.

      In early 2024 Jan Schmidt/thaytan, who previously worked on Rift CV1/S tracking, the first Monado PSVR2 driver and more, implemented WMR controller tracking after first reverse engineering it. This finally turns Monado into a fully functional OpenXR stack with still rough edges, but enough to run VR games under Linux with Proton. Bringing VR hardware to Linux was Monado's primary goal, as HMDs usually only support Windows, with Valve being the only company also supporting Linux on Index.

      So this isn't a solution for Windows 11 users, unless they are willing to switch. And with Microsoft dropping WMR support and keeping important APIs for implementing a Windows OpenXR stack locked away under NDAs, that won't change anytime soon. But finally having an operational FOSS OpenXR stack with support for numerous PCVR HMDs should prove to be a boon to the VR community, currently depending completely on vendor hardware support.

    • Shad Daffucup

      Microsoft has infinite revenue thanks to their stake in OpenAI. At this point they can do whatever pleases them without fear of it ever affecting their bottom line.

      • Rob

        I dont know if thats true. I read yesterday that Microsoft started research why some game developers dont bring their games to xbox anymore. They do care otherwise they wouldnt spend time and money on research

  • ApocalypseShadow

    Microsoft just screwing gamers over. Didn't help VR in the slightest and they failed with Hololens.

    Thanks Microsoft.

  • RIP

  • Star Centurion

    Microsoft doesn't care. I will happily ignore any of their XR efforts in the future.

  • Martin Sakura

    What an incredible a$$hole move by Microsoft