Microsoft has deprecated and removed the Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRA) command-line utility from all in-support versions of Windows updates starting March 10.

SaRA is a free scriptable tool that helps troubleshoot and resolve common issues with Office, Microsoft 365, Outlook, and Windows by running a series of automated diagnostic tests on Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11 systems.

According to Microsoft, the latest version of the utility should identify the root cause and then either automatically fix the issue, provide step-by-step instructions for a manual fix, or help users contact Microsoft support.

"If you're an IT admin, migrate away from the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant utility (SaRA). This command-line utility is deprecated to help secure and harden your environment," Microsoft said on Friday.  "The Get Help command-line tool has similar capabilities and is recommended as a replacement for the SaRA utility. You'll need to download it and use GetHelpCmd.exe to run your scenarios."

Just as SaRA, Get Help is a self-contained, enterprise-ready diagnostic tool for troubleshooting specific Windows client issues affecting various Microsoft 365 apps, such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams.

Administrators can use Get Help from the command line or via a script, such as PowerShell, to run it remotely on endpoints in their organization.

As Microsoft explains, the main difference between the GetHelpCmdLine and SaraCmdLine environments is that the infrastructure powering Get Help provides enhanced security.

SaRA is one of several services and apps the company announced it would deprecate in recent years. For instance, in May 2025, Microsoft also notified Microsoft Authenticator users that the password autofill feature would be deprecated in July and gave them until August 1st to export their passwords before the feature was removed from the app.

The company also told Microsoft Publisher users that the desktop publishing app would be removed from Microsoft 365 after October 2026 and, more recently, started retiring the Microsoft Lens PDF scanner app for Android and iOS devices in January, with plans to remove it from app stores on February 9 and to disable the app's functionality by March.