What’s changing

On November 12, 2024, Microsoft is ending support of .NET 6. As a result, the next version of the Twingate Windows Client will be moving to .NET 8, and any devices that are running future versions of the Windows Client will need to have the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime installed.

How this impacts Windows devices

The Twingate Windows Client EXE installer will automatically install .NET 8 as a prerequisite. You can download the Twingate Windows Client from our Client download page. Administrators that are deploying the EXE installer to remote devices can continue to do so without any changes.

If you are an administrator managing remote devices, and you deploy the Twingate Windows Client with our MSI package, you will need to ensure that the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime is installed on each device. You can download the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime x64 from the Microsoft website. This package can be pushed out through your own MDM solution or installed manually on each device.

If you do deploy the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime package remotely, make sure to use the following flags to allow it to install silently:

c:\path\to\windowsdesktop-runtime-8.0.10-win-x64.exe /install /quiet /norestart

As long as the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime is installed on each device, future versions of the Twingate Windows Client will continue to function as expected. You can continue to deploy updated versions as they’re available.

You can also refer to our Windows Client deployment documentation for more information on managing remote Windows devices with Twingate.

FAQ

Q: When will the Twingate Windows Client move to .NET 8?

A: The Twingate Windows Client will move to .NET 8 as part of the release in early November 2024.

Q: What happens if I don’t install the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime on my Windows devices?

A: If the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime is not installed on a Windows device, future versions of the Twingate Windows Client will not be able to run. You will need to install the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime on each device to continue using the Twingate Windows Client.

Q: How do I know if the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime is installed on my Windows devices?

A: You can check if the .NET 8 Desktop (x64) Runtime is installed by navigating to the Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features. If you see the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime listed, it is installed on the device.

If you’re an administrator or have local administrator permissions then you can run the following command in Powershell to check if the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime is installed:

Get-WmiObject -Query "SELECT * FROM Win32_Product WHERE Name LIKE '%.NET%Runtime%8.%.%'"

It will return output that looks like this if the .NET 8 Desktop Runtime is installed:

IdentifyingNumber : {15B7D0C2-F209-4C28-AF1C-FD8326F4D58A}
Name              : Microsoft .NET Runtime - 8.0.10 (x64)
Vendor            : Microsoft Corporation
Version           : 64.40.21578
Caption           : Microsoft .NET Runtime - 8.0.10 (x64)