Windows Developer Configurations: Microsoft’s Fast Track to a Ready-to-Code Environment

Windows Developer Configurations is the name of a new feature announced at Microsoft Build 2026. The goal is clear: use WinGet's configuration mode to deploy a ready-to-use development environment in just a few minutes.

An Optimized Environment Powered by WinGet

WinGet is прежде all the Windows package manager, which is very useful for installing and updating applications. As we saw in a previous tutorial, its configuration mode makes it possible to go further, especially by performing the system configuration via Windows.

The new feature called Windows Developer Configurations also leverages this mechanism. What is actually new is the ready-made configurations provided by Microsoft, rather than the underlying technique itself.

The goal is to let you deploy a working development environment with everything you need to build in just a few minutes. As a result, the .winget file contains a set of instructions that describe the expected state on the target machine.

This file can automatically install the essential development tools, including:

• WSL
• PowerShell 7
• Git
• GitHub CLI
• Visual Studio Code
• Python
• Etc...

In addition to installing tools, this file applies developer-friendly settings within Windows itself. For example, Git version control is integrated into File Explorer, file extensions are shown, and hidden files are displayed. In all cases, this is a basic configuration that can be customized as needed.

Specific Scripts Based on Your Needs

Beyond the initial machine configuration, Windows Developer Configurations also provides scripts tailored to more specific needs:

• Specific scripts for different languages: depending on whether you code in Rust or PHP, you do not need the same components.
• Comfort configuration scripts for WSL: they let you bring your tools directly to Windows, such as homebrew, zsh, and others.

On GitHub, the Windows Developer Configurations project brings together configuration examples and the documentation you need to get started (this was definitely missing here!). Then, to apply a configuration on a Windows 11 machine, you need to call the file using a command like this one (after enabling configuration mode in WinGet with winget configure --enable):

winget configure -f .\windows-dev-config\dev-config.winget --accept-configuration-agreements --disable-interactivity

For a more detailed look at what you can configure with this method, I encourage you to visit this page.

What do you think about this approach to preparing a development environment?

Florian Burnel Co-founder of IT-Connect

Systems and network engineer, co-founder of IT-Connect and Microsoft MVP "Cloud and Datacenter Management". I'd like to share my experience and discoveries through my articles. I'm a generalist with a particular interest in Microsoft solutions and scripting. Enjoy your reading.

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