What is Microsoft DSC v3

Microsoft DSC v3 is a simple, single executable tool that helps you declare and enforce the desired state of your systems in a cross-platform way.

What is Microsoft DSC v3?

Microsoft Desired State Configuration (DSC) v3 is a cross-platform tool that lets you describe how you want your system to look and behave. You write a configuration document in JSON, Bicep, or YAML describing the desired state and Microsoft DSC v3 ensures your machines matches the state.

For example, what file and folders should always exist or which services should be running always.

Tip

To learn why you want to use Microsoft DSC v3, check out the following article

Installing DSC v3

The following sections demonstrate how you can install Microsoft DSC v3 on the different platforms and methods.

Installing Microsoft DSC v3 using PSDSC

To install Microsoft DSC v3 on all platforms, you can use a community PowerShell module which runs on PowerShell 7+:

  1. Open a PowerShell terminal session
  2. Install the PSDSC module by typing:
Install-PSResource -Name PSDSC -Repository PSGallery
  1. Execute Install-DscExe in your terminal session
Install-DscExe
Tip

You can also install pre-release version by adding the IncludePreRelease switch parameter.

The command automatically adds the dsc executable to the PATH environment variable.

Tip

The WinGet community package repository also contains dsc. For more information, check out the Install DSC on Windows with WinGet (only applies to Windows).

Installing from GitHub

To install Microsoft DSC v3 on Windows using GitHub, you first should determine your OS architecture. There are multiple ways to determine the operating system (OS) architecture. The following three demonstrate using the command prompt, PowerShell, or msinfo.

  1. Open a command prompt and type: echo %PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE%.
  2. Open a PowerShell terminal session and type: [System.Runtime.InteropServices.RuntimeInformation]::OSArchitecture.
  3. In your Quick Start menu, type in msinfo32.exe and locate the System Type property in the System Summary.

After determining your OS architecture, proceed to download the release asset from GitHub.

  1. Open the following link in your favorite browser
  2. Select the version you want to download and scroll-down.
  3. Expand the Assets and press the asset relevant to your OS architecture.
  4. Save the file to your Downloads folder.

When the download is finished, you can expand the files to extract them to your application data folder.

  1. Right-click the file and select Extract all…
  2. Extract the files to C:\Users\<userProfile>\AppData\Local\dsc by replacing the <userProfile> with your profile name.
  3. Open a command prompt and type: rundll32.exe sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables to open the environment variables.
  4. In your user variables, edit your PATH environment variable and include the path C:\Users\<userProfile>\AppData\Local\dsc.

Verify the installation by re-opening a command prompt and typing: dsc --version

Quick introduction: Getting the current state

To quickly learn about Microsoft DSC v3, let’s create a configuration document that gets the operating system information on your system.

  1. Create the following YAML file:

    # osinfo.dsc.yaml
$schema: https://aka.ms/dsc/schemas/v3/bundled/config/document.json
resources:
  - name: os
    type: Microsoft/OSInfo
    properties:
      family: Windows

  2. Run the following command to get the current state

    dsc config get --file osinfo.dsc.yaml
Note

It is also possible to get the current state by running dsc resource get -r Microsoft/OSInfo without needing a configuration file.

Conclusion

Microsoft DSC v3 redefines the DSC experience by providing a single executable into a lightweight and cross-platform tool. It seamlessly fits into modern DevOps pipelines. With a new concept called adapters, existing DSC resource are still able to be executed. Start small to learn the new resource syntax and build up to automate your entire infrastructure.

Happy configuring!

Updated on 30 Jul 2025