From Cloud Development to PowerToys ~ “Dev Home” v0.14 with everything developers need – Window Forest

Microsoft released version 0.14 of “Dev Home” on May 23 (local time). “Dev Home” is a dashboard app for developers. It's been one year since its initial release, and the features are finally being expanded.

The purpose of Dev Home is to increase developer productivity. It is built into the operating system by default (compatible with Windows 11 version 21H2 or later), allows you to set up your Windows device for development with a few clicks, and provides the functionality needed to develop applications in progress. The goal is to become a “one-stop-shop” (a one-stop-shop) you need). In addition to integrating some PowerToys utilities, this update also introduces Environments that can centrally manage remote development environments.

Added developer utility for “PowerToys”

Added developer utility for “PowerToys”

The PowerToys utility package for power users includes several useful tools that can also be used for application development. With Dev Home version 0.14, some of them can now be accessed from Dev Home as well.

• Hosts File Editor: A GUI tool for editing the operating system's “hosts” file
• Registry Preview: When you apply a registry (.REG) file, you can easily see which keys will be added/deleted and how the values ​​will be rewritten.
• Environment Variables: A GUI tool that allows you to edit environment variables. The advantage is that you can create multiple profiles for each use and purpose.

[البيئة]Pilot job graduates

[البيئة]The newly created one is a page that allows you to centrally create, manage, start, configure, etc. a remote development environment, and with this update, it has graduated from being a beta function and is now provided as a preview function.

[البيئة]Pilot job graduates

The Environment Page currently supports Hyper-V Virtual Machines (VMs), Windows Sandbox, and Microsoft Dev Box, a cloud-based workstation optimized for Share Dev. However, it is open source and extensible, so it will become more useful if there are third parties to support it.

Export device settings

Dev Home can export device settings as a WinGet Config file. By specifying the configuration file with the “wingetconfig” command, you can precisely prepare the device for development, making it easier to set up the development environment. It can also be useful if you want to share it with your development team to ensure consistency in device configuration.

Customize Windows

[تخصيص Windows]A page that collects shell customization options for application developers. For example, you can quickly access options like Show file extensions in File Explorer, Show full paths in the address bar, and Enable End task from the right-click menu on the task button.

A set of shell customization options for application developers

Quick Playground (beta feature)

The experimental feature “Quickstart Playground'' is a mechanism that uses AI generation to create development projects and allows them to be containerized. As the name “Playground” suggests, it is a container that will not affect the desktop environment you use daily even if it crashes, so you can experiment with the latest AI models to your heart's content.

Clone cloning

The app development engine Dev Drive, announced last year alongside Dev Home, includes a technology called block cloning, which makes it possible to copy large files instantly.

This feature is said to be faster in the Windows 11 24H2 version, allowing users to clone large repositories quickly.

Clone cloning can greatly improve performance