{"id":5524,"date":"2026-04-09T21:41:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:41:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T04:41:56","slug":"microsoft-locked-out-veracrypt-wireguard-and-windscribe-from-pushing-windows-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=5524","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Locked Out VeraCrypt, WireGuard, and Windscribe from Pushing Windows Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft has had a complicated relationship with the open source world. VSCode, TypeScript, and .NET are all projects it created, and its acquisition of GitHub<\/a> put it in charge of the world’s largest code hosting platform. <\/p>\n

But it is also the same company that bakes telemetry into Windows by default<\/strong> and has been aggressively pushing Copilot AI<\/strong> into every corner of its software. That last part especially has been nudging a growing number of people toward open alternatives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And now, a wave of developer account suspensions has given some open source developers a new headache.<\/p>\n

What’s happening?<\/h2>\n
\"this<\/figure>\n

Microsoft rolled out mandatory account verification<\/a> for all partners enrolled in the Windows Hardware Program<\/a> who had not completed verification since April 2024. The requirement kicked in on October 16, 2025<\/strong>, giving partners 30 days from notification to verify their identity with a government-issued ID.<\/p>\n

Plus, that ID has to match the name of the Partner Center<\/a> primary contact. Miss the deadline or fail verification, and your account gets suspended with no further submissions allowed.<\/p>\n

This matters because signing Windows kernel drivers requires one of these accounts<\/strong>. Without it, developers cannot push driver-signed updates for Windows, and Windows will flag unsigned drivers, blocking them from loading at the kernel level.<\/p>\n

Three major open source projects found this out the hard way. VeraCrypt<\/a>, WireGuard<\/a>, and Windscribe<\/a> all had their developer accounts suspended, cutting off their ability to ship updates on Windows.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

It appears @Microsoft<\/a> is actively suspending developer accounts with no warning or reason of various security tools like VeraCrypt, WireGuard and also Windscribe. We’ve had this VERIFIED account for 8+ years to sign our drivers. <\/p>\n

We’ve been trying to resolve this for over a\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/iwkryuwKuO<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/7VcnAQIbnP<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Windscribe (@windscribecom) April 8, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

VeraCrypt developer Mounir Idrassi<\/a> was the first to go public. In a SourceForge forum post<\/a>, he wrote that Microsoft had terminated his account with no prior warning, no explanation, and no option to appeal. <\/p>\n

Repeated attempts to reach Microsoft through official channels got him nothing but automated replies. The suspension hit his day job too, not just VeraCrypt.<\/p>\n

WireGuard creator Jason Donenfeld hit the same wall a couple of weeks later, when he went to certify a new WireGuard kernel driver for Windows and found his account showing as access restricted. He eventually tracked down a Microsoft appeals process, but it carried a 60-day response window.<\/p>\n

Windscribe’s situation was arguably the messiest<\/strong>. The company says it had held a verified Partner Center<\/em> account for over eight years and spent more than a month trying to sort things out before going public.<\/p>\n

Moreover, once an account is suspended, Partner Center blocks users from opening a support ticket directly.<\/p>\n

What now?<\/h2>\n

This eventually got Microsoft’s attention as Scott Hanselman<\/a>, VP and Member of Technical Staff at Microsoft and GitHub stepped in on X<\/a> to say the accounts would be fixed. He pointed to the October 2025 blog post (linked earlier<\/em>) and said the company had been sending emails to affected partners since then.<\/p>\n

Scott confirmed he had personally reached out to both Mounir and Jason to get their accounts unblocked, and that fixes were already in progress.<\/p>\n

Anyway, this doesn’t look good<\/strong>, and leaving developers of critical security software without recourse for weeks only erodes trust. But, in the end, this won’t really affect a behemoth like Microsoft<\/a>, who has a dominating hold on the operating system market.<\/p>\n

\n

Suggested Read \ud83d\udcd6: <\/strong>Proton Workspace and Meet launched as alternatives to Big Tech offerings<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft has had a complicated relationship with the open source world. VSCode, TypeScript, and .NET are all projects it created, and its acquisition of GitHub put it in charge of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}