MS Accessibility Insights: the successor of Inspect

Inspect tool is a legacy app, now it has a modern successor..

If you’re engaged in test automation for Windows desktop applications, you’re well aware that the Inspect tool is an indispensable asset. But even by the look of it, we know it is a legacy application. Lately, I saw this message on a Microsoft blog post.

I was so happy to see this. Because if you have experience, you know the hassle to install the inspect tool. We have to install the whole Windows SDK to have this little tool. So.. no more hassles! ❤

What is MS Accessibility Insights?

Accessibility Insights tool was first released on February 14th 2022! (with ❤) As of today, the latest production release of the tool is version 1.1.2360.01, which was released on June 19, 2023. So what’s this new tool capable of?

Accessibility Insights windows app is a tool that is capable of helping developers/testers find and fix accessibility issues in Windows apps. The tool supports three primary scenarios: Live Inspect, FastPass, and Troubleshooting.