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What's new in the ADK tools

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What's new in the ADK 10.1.26100.1 (May 2024)

Assessment Toolkit

  • Added new metrics for Hypervisor and VSM delays in Boot performance (Full Boot) assessment
  • Updated to support full end to end Windows Assessment Console (WAC) UI and execution flow on ARM64 platform
  • Updated to support AC mode for Energy Efficiency jobs
  • Optimized user experience in EdgeAutomation and WinappAutomation jobs
  • Fixed various bugs in Energy Efficiency web browsing and Microsoft Teams workloads

Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA)

  • New Welcome Screen: to streamline the workflow for users by enabling pre-analysis configuration.
  • New WPA Launcher: provides a convenient access point for recently used files, settings configuration, plugin management, Getting Started documentation, and many other features
  • Settings Configuration: WPA now features a centralized settings hub within the launcher, designed to streamline the customization and management of the application. This unified settings page offers users the convenience to adjust application text, switch between light and dark themes, and seamlessly access and copy WPA's about information for troubleshooting purposes.
  • Refreshed diagnostic console: The Diagnostics console has been revamped with better grouping/filtering support. Diagnostics are now logged in respective “channels” based on which component logged a given message. The user can now filter logs based on the log level and logging type.
  • Analysis: In the era where Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are not just buzzwords but essential drivers of innovation, the importance of specialized hardware like Neural Processing Units (NPU) cannot be overstated. Recognizing this, we're excited to unveil ana Neural Processing Profile PU analysis within the Windows Performance Recorder (WPR.exe & WPRUI.exe) to record NPU usage and new table & graphs in Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA).
  • New Gantt chart modes: Timeline views were hard to visualize but with the new Gantt chart modes, users can visualize the timeline to help them understand the parent-child relationships. You can select the Grant chart mode by clicking on the button besides the chart preset dropdown. You have two modes “Combine as Grouped” and “Combine as Related”
    • Combine as Grouped: This is the most common Gantt chart mode. The relationship is 1:1 with the group of the table. In the below graph, several new thread Id are grouped under Explorer.exe.
    • Combine as Related: This Gantt chart mode illustrates the timeline and interdependencies of various tasks within a collection & its grouped by their relationships to their parent group. In the below image, as we drill into Explorer.exe, we can see the data points converging, all linked to the parent group.

Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT)

  • Added support for Windows Server 2019 product keys
  • Added support for Windows Server 2025 product keys
  • Added support for IoT Enterprise/Client LTSC 2024

Windows Configuration Designer (WCD)

  • Added support for new settings and policies

Media eXperience Analyzer (MXA)

  • QoS (quality of Service) and Epp support added to Scheduler view
    • New properties
    • New views
  • Interval Stack diagnosis module for Graphics call stacks
  • Miscellaneous bug fixes

Supply Chain Trust Tools

• New supply chain trust tools added: sbom-tool and CoseSignTool. These tools are used at Microsoft to create and sign our SBOMs. We've decided to share these tools with the community to help improve the observability of components across the industry. While there are other methods to produce SBOMs, we believe that teams using our tools will have an easier time creating clarity with their partners, both within and outside of Microsoft.

Application Virtualization (App-V)

Note

Application Virtualization (App-V) will be in end-of-life in April 2026 (see Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) support extended). At that time, the App-V sequencer will no longer be included in the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK).

  • App-Sequencer and App-V Auto sequencer components are now default unselected as part of the ADK installation, previously they were default selected.
  • Deprecation notes have been added to the App-V Sequencer & Auto Sequencer descriptions section displayed as part of the ADK installation, as well as to the App-V Sequencer UI launch screen.

Registry Hive Recovery Tools

  • Removed registry hive recovery tool required for loading uplevel registry hives on Win 8 or earlier OS’s. If you still have a need for this tool, copy in any prior version of the ADK can be used.

What's new in the ADK 10.1.25398.1 (September 2023)

Supply Chain Trust Tools

Assessment toolkit

  • Updated browsing battery life workloads.
  • Added face authentication metrics and improved reliability of Modern Standby performance assessment.
  • Added new automated diagnostics to battery life jobs (package C-state residency, idle hygiene).
  • Fixed various crashes affecting ETW traces processing of assessment results.
  • Fixed various bugs affecting Media Player automation reliability of media playback performance assessments.
  • Fixed randomly occurring bug affecting idle hygiene during battery life tests.
  • Fixed missing performance metrics for Microsoft Edge performance assessment due to ETW instrumentation changes.

Windows PE

Windows PE Known Issues

Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA)

Windows System Image Manager

  • x86 version of SIM can create catalogs for Windows images of all supported achitecture types.

Assessment toolkit known issues

  • On ARM64 devices, the WPA executable is not automatically added to the PATH environment variable.
  • When maximizing WPA in fullscreen on a secondary monitor, the top left right-click menu appears on the incorrect monitor.

Note

Application Virtualization (App-V) will be in end-of-life in April 2026 (see Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) support extended). At that time, the App-V sequencer will no longer be included in the Windows Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK).

What's new in the ADK for Windows 11, version 22H2

Windows Performance Recorder (WPR)

  • WPR can now enable event providers in the system session. This means <SystemCollectorId> can include <EventProviders> in WPR profile file.
  • Added the compress trace option for the stop command in WPR and WPRUI

Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA)

  • Supports plugins built on the Software Development Kit for the Microsoft Performance ToolKit
  • New Modern UI
    • Dark/Light Mode
    • Font Scaling
    • Improved Search UI
    • High DPI support
    • Accessibility Improvements
  • Table/Graph Improvements
    • Customize Colors via AQS Queries
    • Quick Filter Support
    • Aggregation UI Improvements
  • Improved Trace Processing and Performance Improvements

What's new in the ADK for Windows 11

Assessment toolkit known issues

  • Modern Standby performance assessment:
    • If you enable the new LockScreen option: For the "When should Windows require you to sign-in again" question in the Settings app sign-in options, make sure to select "When PC wakes up from sleep".
    • Some regions of interests may randomly appear in the Windows Assessment Toolkit assessment report due to a known issue in Windows Performance Toolkit. Re-analysis of the results may correct the issue.
  • Microsoft Edge performance assessment: On entry-level hardware with low memory or two cores, the results may show an large amount of outliers in the results distribution due to a race condition in the test logic. In that case, only the fastest iterations should be considered valid.
  • Microsoft Store App performance assessment: If you don't specify a filter the test may fail on Arm64 when trying to assess some infrastructure appx packages. If this happens, you can specify a filter to only test the apps you desire, or add the failing package name to blocklist.txt.

See Windows Assessment Toolkit for more information about the Windows Assessment Toolkit.

What's new in the ADK for Windows Server 2022

Windows Performance Recorder (WPR)

The WPR command line has a few new features and updates to improve your developer analysis. See What's New in the Windows Performance Toolkit for more information.

Windows Performance Analyzer

WPA's code structure and tooling has been rewritten with early support of the Performance Toolkit SDK. With the rewrite, WPA is now a self contained .NET Core 3.1 application, allowing for extensibility by loading plugins to process any specific data sources (outside of ETL).

What's new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 2004

Windows Performance Recorder (WPR)

New SkipPDBGen Option - During WPR stop, you can now specify in the command line the ability to skip generation of PDBs (NGen & Embedded) to help reduce trace stop time.

  • wpr -stop <recording filename> <Problem description> [-skipPdbGen]

What's new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1903

Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA)

The latest WPA has two new features:

  • Right-Click Tooltips for Column Headers - Use this for “one click” changes to Column Aggregation, Format, and Modes.

  • Utility Columns for CPU Tables (Sampled & Precise) - This augments the Weight or Usage columns values by performance characteristics of the Processor Architecture.

Windows System Image Manager known issue

When using Window System Image Manager (SIM), you might encounter errors if the ADK is installed on a device running a 64-bit version of Windows. To create unattended Windows Setup answer files on a 64-bit version of Windows, download the WSIM 1903 update, and follow the included installation instructions.

Hashes for the WSIM 1903 update download:

  • SHA1 - EB6F0DDE2CBEF44261174E23BFF844418E1CC428
  • SHA256 - D20D0F5AA5E4AECC2D8E344B2A88E65AA799598C89CF19229C82E27C4E961D83

Windows Assessment Toolkit known issue

The Fast Startup assessment may not automatically reboot some systems using an ACPI Time and Alarm device after shutdown when the “use wake timers” option is selected in the assessment configuration. If this is blocking test automation, clear the option and retry.

What's new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1809

Windows PE

Starting with Windows 10, version 1809, Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE) is released separately from the Assessment and Deployment Kit (ADK). To add Windows PE to your ADK installation, download the Windows PE Addon and run the included installer after installing the ADK. This change enables post-RTM updates to tools in the ADK. After running the installer for the WinPE add-on, the WinPE files will be in the same location as they were in previous installs of the ADK.

See Download and install the Windows ADK and ADK tools to get the ADK and WinPE add-on.

WPT

With the latest version of Windows Performance Recorder (WPR), WPR Profiles (WPRP) with Custom Events in TraceMergeProperties now work as intended. Due to this change, if a custom WPRP contains an TraceMergeProperties XML element with an empty set of Custom Events, this will no longer include the default set of Custom Events (ImageIDs, WinSat, etc). To keep the same behavior with previous versions, make sure to include the following attribute as part of the TraceMergeProperties element: Base=”TraceMerge_Default”

With the latest version of Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA), .NET 4.5.2 framework is required for certain components when running on Windows 8 installations. To ensure proper use of WPA, download the latest version of .NET.

Retail Demo Experience (RDX)

RDX 3.0 is available in Windows 10, version 1809, and will be automatically updated on Windows 10, version 1803 for connected devices. Updates include a new webpage-style layout, a new API to allow you to manage your own assets, and a digital fact tag that can be updated locally from the sales floor.

Answer file setting changes

For an overview of Unattend settings that are new, deprecated, and removed, see Changed answer file settings for Windows 10, version 1809 for desktop editions.

To learn more, see Unattended Windows Setup Reference.

What's new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1803

PowerView

PowerView is a new tool used to visualize data from Energy Estimation Engine logs produced by powercfg /srumutil, and Windows Assessment Toolkit battery life tests.

New in Windows Assessment Toolkit

  • Standby (S3) and Hibernate (S4) battery life workloads
  • Productivity Workload (prerequisite: install Microsoft Office 2016 before executing the test)
  • Modern Standby Performance

See Windows Assessment Toolkit for guidance.

Answer file setting changes for Windows 10, version 1803

For an overview of Unattend settings that are new, deprecated, and removed, see Changed answer file settings for Windows 10, version 1803 for desktop editions.

To learn more, see Unattended Windows Setup Reference.

MDM: Enhanced device and PC management

Check out the new CSPs settings.

See Mobile Device Management for more information.

More changes

See What's new in Windows 10 for the latest features and changes in design, customization, manufacturing, and drivers.

What’s new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1709

Support for Arm64 platforms

Answer file setting changes for Windows 10, version 1709

For an overview of Unattend settings that are new, deprecated, and removed, see Changed answer file settings for Windows 10 version 1709 for desktop editions.

To learn more about Unattend settings, see the Unattended Windows Setup Reference.

MDM: Enhanced device and PC management for Windows 10, version 1709

Check out the new CSPs settings.

See Mobile Device Management for more information.

More changes for Windows 10, version 1709

See What's new in Windows 10 for the latest features and changes in design, customization, manufacturing, and drivers.

Tip

Watch our video on ADK, HLK, HDK and EWDK updates for the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update to learn more.

Learn about the ADK tools

The topics below provide instructions on using the tools included in the Windows 10 ADK:

Tip

You can find ADK tools located in the following directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit

What’s new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1703

Windows Configuration Designer

Previously known as Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD), the tool for creating provisioning packages is renamed Windows Configuration Designer. Windows Configuration Designer in Windows 10, version 1703, includes several new wizards to make it easier to create provisioning packages.

New answer file settings added

To see the newest unattend settings, go to Changed answer file settings for Windows 10 version 1703 for desktop editions.

MDM: Enhanced device and PC management for Windows 10, version 1703

Check out the new CSPs settings.

What’s new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1607

Pick and choose desktop applications

With siloed provisioning packages, you can now pick and choose which desktop applications to add to your images during deployment. You no longer need to recapture the entire set of applications into your recovery image, they’re added in automatically. These packages support space-saving features like Compact OS and single-instancing.

Build IoT Core images for large-scale deployment

Capture your apps, drivers, and settings, and deploy them securely to new devices. Learn how with the IoT Core manufacturing guides.

The Chinese (Hong Kong SAR) language pack (zh-HK) is no longer used

The Chinese (Taiwan) language pack (zh-TW) supports both Taiwan and Hong Kong SAR locales. For more information, see Available Language Packs for Windows.

You can limit access to a single Windows app (assigned access)

New answer file settings added for Windows 10, version 1607

MDM: Enhanced device and PC management for Windows 10, version 1607

Check out the new CSPs settings.

What’s new in the Windows ADK for Windows 10, version 1511

The Windows ADK now includes Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer, the Windows Assessment Toolkit, the Windows Performance Toolkit, and several new and improved deployment tools that can help you automate a large-scale deployment of Windows 10.

Windows Imaging and Configuration Designer (ICD)

  • Quickly create a provisioning package that you can use to customize devices without re-imaging.
  • Build a customized Windows 10 image for specific market segments and regions.

See Getting started with Windows ICD for more information.

Push-button reset incorporates system updates by default

Users can now refresh or restore their PCs to the updated version of the system files, instead of having to reinstall each update individually.

Partial language packs now available

Want to add more languages for users when they turn on their device? Instead of adding full language packs, save space by adding just the base user interface files for a language. Later, if your user needs handwriting or voice recognition capabilities, Windows can download them as needed.

For more information, see Language Packs (lp.cab).

New package type: Capabilities

This new Windows package type lets you request services like Microsoft .NET or languages without specifying the version. Use the DISM tool to search multiple sources like Windows Update or your corporate servers to find and install the latest version.

Save space by running Windows from compressed OS files

You can now run Windows directly from compressed files. This is similar to WIMBoot, introduced in Windows 8.1 Update 1. This new process uses individual files instead of a static WIM file. When updating system files, Windows now replaces the old files instead of keeping both copies.