Microsoft silently erases a key feature from Windows 7 as Windows 11 changes things up

Part of keeping tabs on the trends of the tech world is seeing that used to be new and revolutionary become old hat and subsequently replaced. Due to the speed technology can go at, this can sometimes happens in just a few years. Sometimes, however, things manage to hold on for a long time before something new finally swoops in and delivers the final blow.

Such is the case of Device Stage, a feature that came along with Windows 7 and really helped people get their devices working with Windows. It did a lot of hard work over the years, but with Windows 11 changing things up, Device Stage has been left on the wayside and is now being deprecated.

Microsoft removes references to Device Stage from its website

As spotted by Neowin, Microsoft has quietly scrubbed any description of Device Stage from its support pages. If this is the first time you’ve heard of the feature, Device Stage made it easier for developers to create hardware for Windows 7 and show users the important parts of their peripherals. From the original announcement post back in 2009, Microsoft described it as such:

Device Stage is new visual interface that makes it easy to find the things you want to do with your devices on your Windows 7 PC. You could think of Device Stage as a multi-function version of Autoplay where it displays all the applications, services, and information related to your device. Device Stage not only works for devices connected to a Windows 7 PC via USB, but also Bluetooth and Wi-Fi as well. In many cases, software installation isn’t required for Device Stage – with any additional drivers that might be needed automatically retrieved from Windows Update.

For a while, you could read more about it on a support page titled “Automatically get recommended drivers and updates for your hardware.” If you check out this archived version of the webpage, you will see a drop-down menu to help you solve Device Stage issues. However, the current version of the same webpage doesn’t discuss it at all; instead, it focuses entirely on Windows 10 and 11 and cuts down on the amount of content on it. It was a good run, Device Stage.

While Microsoft begins to wrap up all of its ties with Windows 7, you may be surprised to hear that Firefox hasn’t given up on the operating system yet.