Why Was Video Conference Mute Deprecated?

[MohamedESalem]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

Hi PowerToys team,

I recently noticed that the Video Conference Mute (VCM) feature has been deprecated, and I wanted to understand the reasoning behind this decision. This feature was incredibly useful, and I (along with many others) relied on it regularly.

Could you provide more details on why it was removed? Was it due to technical challenges, low usage, or other considerations? If there are any recommended alternatives, I’d appreciate any guidance you can offer.

I hope the team might reconsider bringing it back or at least provide more context on the decision. Looking forward to your response.

Scenario when this would be used?

I’m really frustrated by this decision. This feature was incredibly useful, and I relied on it regularly for my remote work.

For example, when I’m in a virtual meeting on Teams or Zoom, I often deal with unexpected background noise—whether it’s family members, pets, or just general home distractions. With VCM, I could instantly mute both my microphone and webcam across all applications with a single shortcut, instead of scrambling to find the mute button in each app. It saved me from awkward moments and made managing meetings much smoother.

Now that it’s gone, I have to manually mute in every app, which is frustrating and inefficient. Can you explain why it was removed? Was it a technical limitation, low usage, or something else? If there’s an alternative, I’d love to hear about it.

I really hope you reconsider bringing it back, as it was a game-changer for remote workers like me. Looking forward to your response.

Supporting information

No response

[Soham-bit10]

I think it was copyright, wasn't it ?

[MohamedESalem]

I think it was copyright, wasn't it ?

Do you have any source for this? I couldn’t find anything about copyright being the reason for its removal

[Soham-bit10]

I seen some similar video's got banned from last few weeks, but still l am not sure.

[MohamedESalem]

I seen some similar video's got banned from last few weeks, but still l am not sure.

I’ve downloaded an older version (v0.87.1) that still has the VCM feature for now, but I’m still hoping for some clarification from the PowerToys team on why it was removed

[marcusfey]

Same for me. I'll switch back to an older version then.

[anikolop]

Same for me. The most used feature of this collection of tools.

[jaimecbernardo]

Thank you for the feedback!

Previous discussion can be seen on #36339 and #21473

It has been in maintenance mode since v0.67, has low usage, and there are similar features already available in Windows.

[DorsalAxe]

Pretty ridiculous, since we were previously told it would be deprecated but not removed. The "similar features already available in Windows" statement is false, and not even remotely comparable. The global mute that was added to Windows 11 requires apps to specifically support it, and barely anything does, so it's mostly useless! There is no equivalent function for disabling cameras.

There's been so much opposition to this, and yet it's been pushed through anyway. Shameful.

[HamonTeacher]

Same here! The most useful feature in this program! I used it every day.
Rolled back to the previous version with no updates. Let's wait for the developers to change their mind. If not - I hope the community will be able to implement a similar program separately from PT. Very frustrating to be honest.

[jfpaccini]

I really do not understand the problem that would have been to simply keep this tool ? Maintenance mode, fine. So what ? who has a problem with that ? is there any unofficial-we-do-not-dare-to-say reason ?

Please bring us this feature back !! ;)

thanks

[klueman]

It has been in maintenance mode since v0.67, has low usage, and there are similar features already available in Windows.

Again, as stated in the other post, this is not an answer.

1. You put it in maintenance mode 2 years ago and haven't worked on it since. You can't say "it's been in maintenance mode" like something went wrong with it. This is just stating your following through on the thing you wanted to do 2 years ago. That's not an answer to the question.

2. Many PowerToys modules have low usage. You mean to tell me fewer people were using VCM than any other module you support?

3. The feature you're claiming is available in Windows are not an equivalent feature whatsoever, and it is only available in Windows 11 anyway.

[HamonTeacher]

"There's an alternative in Windows 11," they said....

[AvogatoWizardWhisker]

I'm certain that many features in PowerToys have low usage, and yet VCM is deprecated and now removed? So many false promises from your part, and I'm quite disappointed. Can you at least provide an explanation on why and how removing VCM is going to help developing PowerToys? And even though the feature already existed in Windows 11, the apps supporting are so minimal and it doesn't make much sense.

[SiphonDuck]

From the (very little) I can understand by looking at the files, it looks like VCM relied on an x86 build that they wanted to remove, so instead of bothering to update the module to x64, they just deprecated it.

I honestly don't like this decision at all and, as many others here, will just use an older version from now on, hoping that a solution will be found in the future.

[arphox]

I used to use this tool and sometimes it simply didn't work without any feedback (did not mute), which instantly destroyed my trust with this tool, so I turned it off and never thought of it again.