We’re pleased to announce the General Availability of Microsoft’s Desired State Configuration (DSC) version 3.1.0. This release marks a significant milestone in our effort to deliver cloud-native configuration management for cross-platform environments. DSC is a declarative configuration and orchestration platform that defines a standard way of exposing settings for applications and services. DSC v3.1.0 is built on collaboration with key improvements driven by partner requests. Special thanks to the Windows Package Manager (WinGet) team and the incredible support of the DSC community.

For additional details about the initial DSC v3.0.0 release, see:

• DSC v3.0.0 Announcement
• DSC v3.0.0 Get Started
• DSC v3.0.0 Enhanced Authoring

What’s New in DSC v3.1

This release continues our momentum by delivering features and improvements driven by real world use, partner feedback, and community contributions.

DSC v3.1 includes updates and fixes across the platform. Here are some of the most important improvements:

WinGet and partner-driven enhancements

• Core infrastructure updates to enable DSC-based management in WinGet scenarios.
• Extended resource invocation APIs, allowing for richer integration by external tools.
• Increased flexibility for configuration refresh and reporting, driven by partner needs.

Resource authoring improvements

• Improved handling and validation for resource schema files, with clearer error messages.
• Fixed issues with module loading and path resolution that impacted PSDSC resources.
• More robust handling of resources with required and optional properties.

Cross-Platform reliability and bug fixes

• Fixed several Linux-specific issues in resource execution, state detection, and error reporting.
• Improved Windows compatibility, particularly for recent versions and in mixed-OS environments.
• Addressed inconsistencies in the application of ensure properties and desired state evaluation.

Performance and quality

• Optimized configuration drift detection, resulting in faster and more reliable test operations.
• Reduced occurrence of configuration runs left in an indeterminate or failed state.
• Improved error handling for edge cases in set, test, and get operations.

Diagnostics and usability

• Expanded logging and diagnostics, making it easier to trace resource behavior and configuration activity.
• Improved the clarity and usefulness of error and warning messages across platforms.
• More consistent reporting of operation outcomes in both interactive and automated scenarios.

For a full list of changes, see the DSC v3.1 changelog

Installing DSC

To get started, follow these steps to install DSC on your system:

On Windows, you can install DSC from the Microsoft Store using winget. By installing from the Store or using winget, you get automatic updates for DSC.

Search for the latest version of DSC:

winget search DesiredStateConfiguration --source msstore

Name                              Id           Version Source
---------------------------------------------------------------
DesiredStateConfiguration         9NVTPZWRC6KQ Unknown msstore
DesiredStateConfiguration-Preview 9PCX3HX4HZ0Z Unknown msstore

Install DSC using the id parameter:

# Install latest stable
winget install --id 9NVTPZWRC6KQ --source msstore

# Install latest preview
winget install --id 9PCX3HX4HZ0Z --source msstore

On Linux and macOS, you can install DSC using the following steps:

1. Download the latest release from the PowerShell/DSC repository.
2. Expand the release archive.
3. Add the folder containing the expanded archive contents to your PATH environment variable.

Support lifecycle

DSC follows semantic versioning.

The first release of DSC version 3.0.0 is a Stable release. DSC version 3.1.0 is the current Stable release. Patch releases update the third digit of the semantic version number. For example, 3.1.1 is a patch update to 3.1.0. Stable releases receive patches for critical bugs and security vulnerabilities for three months after the next Stable release. For example, version 3.1.0 is supported for three months after 3.2.0 is released.

Always update to the latest patch version of the release you’re using.

Call to action

For more information about Desired State Configuration v3.0 (DSC), see the DSC documentation. We value your feedback. Stop by our GitHub repository and let us know of any issues you find.

Jason Helmick

Sr. Product Manager, PowerShell