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Settings for developers

The System > Advanced page in Windows settings includes Developer Mode and additional features that you can use when Developer Mode is enabled. Developer Mode unlocks tools, settings, and features designed for building, deploying, and testing apps on Windows.

A screenshot of Windows Advanced settings for developers, showing Developer Mode, Device Portal, and Device discovery.

Note

Prior to Windows 11 25H2, these settings appear on the For developers page in Windows settings. In Windows 11 25H2 and later, they appear in the For developers section of the Advanced settings page.

Enable Developer Mode

If you're writing software with Visual Studio, you will need to enable Developer Mode on both the development PC and on any devices you'll use to test your code.

Important

If you're using your computer for ordinary day-to-day activities (such as gaming, web browsing, email, or Office apps), there is no need to activate Developer Mode. If you're trying to fix an issue with your computer, check out Windows help.

To enable Developer Mode, or access other settings:

  1. Open Windows Settings.

  2. Search for Advanced or go to System > Advanced, then scroll to the For developers section.

  3. Toggle the Developer Mode setting, at the top of the For developers section.

  4. Read the disclaimer. Click Yes to accept the change.

    Developer Mode dialog in Visual Studio

Note

Enabling Developer mode requires administrator access. If your device is owned by an organization, this option may be disabled.

If you try to build a Windows project in Visual Studio when Developer Mode isn't enabled, the following dialog appears in Visual Studio:

Developer Mode dialog in Visual Studio that says Developer Mode needs to be enabled, with a link to settings for developers.

If you see this dialog, select settings for developers to open the System > Advanced settings page.

Note

You can go to the Advanced settings page at any time to enable or disable Developer Mode.

Developer Mode features

Developer Mode replaces the requirements for a developer license. In addition to sideloading, the Developer Mode setting enables debugging and additional deployment options. This includes starting an SSH service to allow deployment to this device. In order to stop this service, you need to disable Developer Mode.

When you enable Developer Mode on desktop, a package of features is installed, including:

  • Windows Device Portal: Device Portal is only enabled (and firewall rules are only configured for it) when the Enable Device Portal option is turned on.
  • Installs and configures firewall rules for SSH services that allow remote installation of apps. Enabling Device Discovery will turn on the SSH server.

Note

Device Portal and Device discovery are useful when you need to develop on one machine, but deploy your app to another machine for testing. For example, if you need to deploy your app to a tablet to test a touch-optimized tablet user interface.

Device Portal

To learn more about Device Portal, see Windows Device Portal overview and Device Portal for desktop.

Device Discovery

When you enable Device Discovery, you're allowing your device to be visible to other devices on the network through mDNS. This feature also allows you to get the SSH PIN for pairing to the device by pressing the Pair button exposed immediately after Device Discovery is enabled. This PIN prompt must be displayed on the screen in order to complete your first Visual Studio deployment targeting the device.

A screenshot of the Pair device dialog that displays the SSH Pin for device pairing.

You should enable Device Discovery only if you intend to make the device a deployment target. For example, if you use Device Portal to deploy an app to a tablet for testing, you need to enable Device Discovery on the tablet, but not on your development PC.

SSH

SSH services are enabled when you enable Device Discovery on your device. This is used when your device is a remote deployment target for MSIX packaged applications. The names of the services are SSH Server Broker and SSH Server Proxy.

Note

This is not Microsoft's OpenSSH implementation, which you can find on GitHub.

In order to take advantage of the SSH services, you can enable Device Discovery to allow pin pairing. If you intend to run another SSH service, you can set this up on a different port or turn off the Developer Mode SSH services. To turn off the SSH services, turn off Device Discovery.

SSH login is done via the DevToolsUser account, which accepts a password for authentication. This password is the PIN displayed on the device after pressing the Device Discovery Pair button, and it's only valid while the PIN is displayed. A SFTP subsystem is also enabled for manual management of the DevelopmentFiles folder where loose file deployments are installed from Visual Studio.

Caveats for SSH usage

The existing SSH server used in Windows is not yet protocol compliant. Using an SFTP or SSH client may require special configuration. In particular, the SFTP subsystem runs at version 3 or less, so any connecting client should be configured to expect an old server. The SSH server on older devices uses ssh-dss for public key authentication (which OpenSSH has deprecated). To connect to such devices, the SSH client must be manually configured to accept ssh-dss.

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