WireGuard makes new Windows release following Microsoft signing resolution
9 hours ago (lists.zx2c4.com)
Recent and related: Microsoft terminated the account VeraCrypt used to sign Windows drivers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47686549
9 hours ago (lists.zx2c4.com)
Recent and related: Microsoft terminated the account VeraCrypt used to sign Windows drivers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47686549
As I mentioned in the mailing list post, the Microsoft paperwork shuffling matter got dealt with rather quickly, following all the attention the HN thread from the other day got. And now we're finally out with an update!
NT programming is a lot of fun, though this release was quite challenging, because of all of the toolchain updates. On the plus side, we got to remove pre-Win10 support -- https://lists.zx2c4.com/pipermail/wireguard/2026-March/00954... . But did you know that Microsoft removed support for compiling x86 drivers in their latest driver SDK? So that was interesting to work around. There was also a fun change to the Go runtime included in this release: https://github.com/golang/go/commit/341b5e2c0261cc059b157f1c...
All and all, a fun release, and I'm happy to have the Windows release train cooking again.
Good to know everything was resolved, but did you ever find out why your signing account was suspended? That's not something you brush off as haha silly Microsoft..
Microsoft are saying it's because those accounts didn't undergo verification for the Windows Hardware Program
https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/09/microsoft_dev_account...
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They should definitely put up a statement addressing it. Moreover what they plan in the future to avoid such traumatic event, this is not a “simple sign program”, this touches fundamental parts of the OS.
Apparently it's quite widespread, so I would assume a bug on their side. That's what support seemed to imply at least. We're still blocked at my company for one month+ now.
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https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/hardware-dev-center...
Off topic: Thanks for wireguard. It is a truly great piece of software.
Somewhat on the side - but is there a wireguard that works well for ReactOS? Does the windows version just work fine?
Just curious how/if the version support might work out for ReactOS.
Good question! I've never tried. The NT driver makes use of some of the more advanced features of the networking stack, so possibly not. But you never know. I'd love a Wg4React.
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I really appreciate what you wrote in that post re: dropping support for pre-Windows 10 operating systems.
I'd like to snag that latest previous version which still has compatibility with older OS's, anyone have a reliable link handy?
(I couldn't quickly find a "Previous Versions" list on their website)
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Hey there, thank you for pushing this out. I saw there's a 0.6.1 update now, that also reboots the machine after updating. I don't remember if it said it'd do said reboot...
> following all the attention the HN thread from the other day got
That's great for you, and no offense, but what about developers who can't get buzz in a HN thread? Are they just doomed? Why is support only available to those who can raise a ruckus on social media?
The broader general problem is that it should not be necessary to attempt amplification of a message via HN or X or other platforms to get a company to have a real human pay attention to something, and write a hand crafted response.
This seems to increasingly be the norm with people who have had their accounts locked, deleted or restricted by automated systems. You have to hope that you can write a message and get it amplified via some sort of platform read by hundreds of thousands of people, and get people to reshare your message, in order to get any form of traction.
If you're not somebody well known, noteworthy or somehow significant in a community your likelihood of having your message successfully amplified is much lower.
Your work is always appreciated.
As a wireguard user myself (even on the lone Windows machine that I still begrundingly have), I am happy that this problem could have been resolved. I am just wondering - if there had not been this kind of public outcry and outrage that Mr. Donenfeld discounts in his announcement message, would the issue have been fixed by now?
What are individual developers of "lesser" (less important, less visible, less used) software with a Windows presence to do? Wait and pray for Goliath to make the first benevolent move, like all the folks who got locked out forever from their Google accounts on a whim? Ha!
The fact of the matter is, the code signing requirements on Windows are a serious threat to Free and Open Source Software on the platform. Code signing requirements are a threat to FOSS on all platforms that support this technique, and infinitely more so where it's effectively mandatory. I firmly believe that these days, THIS is the preferred angle/vector for Microsoft to kill the software variety their C-levels once publicly bad-mouthed as "cancer", and zx2c4 is one of the poor frogs being slowly boiled alive. Just not this time - yet.
They would be ignored. Having an audience is key to getting problems solved, whether it’s a lone hacker or a large corporation. Without an audience, you have no leverage. At that point you might as well create a new Windows account and re-apply, since that would have more luck than getting around a “we’ve closed your account and there’s no appeal process” barrier.
If that sounds Kafkaesque, it is. It’s a small miracle that getting a post to the top of HN can surmount such bureaucracy at all.
The best way to get an audience is to tell a compelling story. Make it interesting. There are ways of doing that for even the least known developers.
My point is to push back against the idea that it should be fair to everyone and that what’s morally right should prevail in every case. The hardware developer program doesn’t exist to treat every developer fairly. They exist to make money for Microsoft. pg puts it more eloquently here: https://paulgraham.com/judgement.html
It makes me think tech communities need to lobby for more laws to ensure fair access to platforms, app stores, etc. Be that at least side loading apps, etc.
Otherwise we’ll eventually all get lost in the kafkaesque technocracies.
Less for moral reading, but to keep from being squashed by the weight of tech.
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I got a modestly-similar situation resolved by buying a support package and spending 4+ hours across ... not sure, but probably 4-5 support calls? It's been 5 years. If memory serves it was the $200/mo support package for Azure.
In retrospect, I should have not spent 3 weeks trying to get their incompetent software to work and just gone straight to phone calls. And at least in my case, the support agents seemed broadly unfamiliar, but seemed to have access to higher-priority internal case submission which did finally get to someone who could fix my issue.
While this is a small problem for software (and hardware) that needs custom kernel drivers, or software that needs to run as administrator, you seem to have jumped a long way past that to rant about FOSS on Windows with no justification- general unsigned software works just fine on Windows as it always has.
But what would have happened if they weren't able to get Microsoft's attention through an outside channel (this site) and had to go through the normal process?
I'm glad it was resolved quickly for WireGuard, but I'm concerned the results won't generalize.
Also, thanks for WireGuard!
> and had to go through the normal process?
There is no normal process. The error message clearly states "There are no appeals available, we have closed your application".
If the company makes it impossible for you to communicate with them, the only recourse is to draw public attention to it in order to shame them. This only works if you can gather enough public support and kick up enough of a stink about it. All of the small developers still locked out of their accounts are screwed.
LibreOffice, VeraCrypt, WireGuard. 2 questions:
Whats next?
Is that a pattern?
Was the issue resolved for VeraCrypt as well?
yeah three projects, one account lock, everyone's users stop getting updates. that's the pattern
And Windscribe
What has LibreOffice got to do with any of this?
MS has a history of fucking up LibreOffice installs.
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Faq/General/General_Inst...
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Perhaps this from last year, though it doesn't directly involve code-signing: https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-bans-libreoffice-devel...
Maybe this from 8 months ago?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44728369
Since the impact of the account is presumably known to Microsoft (through telemetry etc), they probably know when these accounts get turned off, and can mark them in case the owner comes back and tries recovery.
Microsoft would not have to automatically and 100% correctly reinstate the account. The goal would be to get high level cases like this one in front of a knowledgable human before the locked account posts angry owner posts complaints in public (If Joe Bloe's defragmentation utility noone has ever heard of and only having 10 installs goes bad, noone would care.)
Here, they don't have to be perfect - you just need to have enough signal-to-voice ratio that employing a very small number of people outweighs the cost to PR and execs to deal with these cases, and to not let accounts get hacked through recovery.
The response from Microsoft [1] is not great, or makes me hopeful.
``` Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's President of Windows and Devices, said both Idrassi and Donenfeld should have their accounts restored "soon."
"We've seen these reports and are actively working to resolve this as quickly as possible," Davuluri Xeeted. "We've reached out to VeraCrypt and have spoken to Jason at WireGuard, they should be back up and running soon."
He explained that both deactivations were executed as part of the Windows Hardware Program's account verification procedures.
The company published a blog in October, giving devs a two-week warning that if their accounts had not been verified since April 2024, Microsoft would issue mandatory account verification notifications.
"We worked hard to make sure partners understood this was coming, from emails, banners, reminders," said Davuluri.
"And we know that sometimes things still get missed. We're taking this as an opportunity to review how we communicate changes like this and make sure we're doing it better."
```
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/09/microsoft_dev_account...
An interesting point I don't think I've seen someone make -- people compare the LLM revolution to other technical revolutions. You don't need to worry about skill decay in the same way that you don't know how to bake bread from unprocessed wheat, or you don't know how to build a loom, etc.
But local models aside (which no matter the protests from HN, will only be available to the technically savvy few) all of these LLMs are a service, so, the company could degrade the service, they could charge more than you're willing or able to pay, they could ban you. They could disable your account with no meaningful way appeal or seek support. LLMs could look at lot more like the scenario in this thread than something like not knowing how to make your own shoes.
It might settle into a situation where cutting edge LLMs are a service, while older and smaller LLMs are self-hosted. So you are not at risk of being cut off, but of being degraded.
There was a lot of speculation about this issue because readers assumed that WireGuard's was the only account that got locked. There was actually a wave of account locks that happened at the same time. If you only saw one of the headlines you might assume it was targeted or the result of some directed conspiracy, not the result of a widespread process.
Microsoft did a (very!) bad job of communicating what was happening, but The Register has more information:
> He explained that both deactivations were executed as part of the Windows Hardware Program's account verification procedures.
> The company published a blog in October, giving devs a two-week warning that if their accounts had not been verified since April 2024, Microsoft would issue mandatory account verification notifications.
> "We worked hard to make sure partners understood this was coming, from emails, banners, reminders," said Davuluri.
Happy to see it resolved and I hope the other developers are able to have the same experience.
By the way, was it only for the Windows application, or was wireguard-go was also affected?
This was just for WireGuardNT, the kernel driver for the NT kernel that Windows uses.
This project -- https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-nt/about/ -- is used by this app -- https://git.zx2c4.com/wireguard-windows/about/ . The former is what the signing situation was about. The latter is just signed using a normal boring (but very expensive!) EV code signing certificate from one of the CAs.
>The comments that followed were a bit off the rails. There's no conspiracy here from Microsoft. But the Internet discussion wound up catching the attention of Microsoft, and a day later, the account was unblocked, and all was well. I think this is just a case of bureaucratic processes getting a bit out of hand, which Microsoft was able to easily remedy. I don't think there's been any malice or conspiracy or anything weird.
it was a bit crazy how quickly people got conspiracy-minded about it.
microsoft fucked up, and as per typical big-tech, only fixed it when noise got made on social media. but not everything is a grand conspiracy orchestrated by microsoft or the government or whatever. incompetence is always more likely than malice.
any news from the veracrypt maintainers? i would imagine whatever microsoft employee got tasked with resolving this issue would have also seen that one.
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edit: well, i certainly underestimated the response to this comment. my mistake for using a common saying rather than being extremely explicit when it comes to something as emotionally charged as microsoft. i dont think i have seen a comment of mine go up and down points so many times before.
what i intended to get across was: "this was not a deliberate, coordinated, purposeful attack on the wireguard project, at the behest of some microsoft executive, to accomplish some goal of making encrypted communication impossible or whatever. instead, this was the result of a stupid system, with a stupid resolution process (social media), that is still awful, but different in important ways from a deliberate attack. this is the typical scenario (stupid system, stupid resolution). the non-typical scenario would be a deliberate choice made and executed by microsoft employees to suddenly destroy a popular project".
i shortened the above paragraph to the common saying "incompetence is always more likely than malice". i shouldnt have. my bad.
> incompetence is always more likely than malice.
"Incompetence" of this degree is malice. It is actively malicious to create a system that automatically locks people out of their accounts with absolutely no possibility for human review or recourse short of getting traction in the media. "No sir, I didn't grind those orphans up. It was this orphan grinding machine I made that did it, teehee!"
i am positive that you understand the spirit of what that saying means.
incompetence is always more likely than [intentional, directed] malice.
microsoft employees did not deliberately attack the wireguard project with a goal of taking it down for whatever grand scheme people's hatred cooks up. if you have evidence that microsoft did this deliberately to ruin the wireguard project, please forward it along to jason (the wireguard maintainer) and several news outlets.
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With the way things are going right now with all the corruption in governments and corporations were way past the point of giving the benefit of the doubt. These organizations are clearly making changes to their OS's to slowly remove user control.
Everything should be treat as suspicious moving forward and I am glad of the skepticism.
The question is, did they notify the user that the account was blocked, or was it done silently? My money is on the latter, obviously I don’t know, just my guess. Was there a reason? Blocked is semantically harsher, than it has been disabled.
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Society is a bit fatigued of big tech companies making their various accounts essential and then locking people out of them without any due process.
yes, i am in agreement. i tried to be extremely clear in my edit that i think that the whole social media being the only way to get an account back is crazy stupid.
All this doesn't matter. What matters is the destructive potential and a breach of trust. CAs have been distrusted for less.
>CAs have been distrusted for less.
root programs are super specific about root cause analysis, what actions lead up to distrust, differentiating deliberate maliciousness from systemic incompetence, etc.
its like the exact opposite of "all this doesnt matter".
of course they still look at the outcome (danger to users, etc.), typically as a first step. but they take great care to determine exactly what lead up to a specific outcome.
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Microsoft lost the benefit of the doubt decades ago.
Who needs conspiracy?
Microsoft has entitled itself to decide what I can and cannot run on the computer and OS that I paid for, this earns them no additional revenue, so they don't care to do a good job.
This system will never work properly.
> it was a bit crazy how quickly people got conspiracy-minded about it.
That's just the side effect of the Soross tracking chips hidden in vaccines activated by 5g towers
Conspiracy 1: rules from on-high about encryption projects to be suppressed. Debunked.
Conspiracy 2: Copilot all the things! Probably not too far off.
i think they have explicitly made it clear that they want to copilot all of the things (unfortunately), so i dont quite file it under the conspiracy label.
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I don't think you can let them off that easily, given that the only effective support channel was "get to the front page of hacker news", which isn't usually an option.
Why do people put so much effort into supporting a hostile platform? I really don't get it.
> I don't think there's been any malice or conspiracy or anything weird
Wink if there’s someone else in the room :)
and imagine for those guys that dont have the reach wireguard/veracrypt does.
NEVER trust microsoft, NEVER trust any mechanism people dont 100% control themselves. having to rely on microsoft to sign stuff is an abomination and something nobody should do
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What's going on at Microsoft? Why did they suddenly declare war on VPN and related software projects?
Wouldn't comply with CIA backdoor requirements, but now they do ;)