Zed is a fairly popular Rust-based code editor that has been in preview across Linux, macOS, and Windows for the past couple of years, with a version 1.0 release expected in the fall of 2025. While development across Linux and macOS has been going along quite smoothly, it appears that the Windows build has stalled a bit. Now, Zed co-founder Max Brunsfeld has shared a status update on the Windows port.
In a detailed blog post spotted by The Register, Brunsfeld has noted that Windows development has engaged four engineers who have worked on the project full-time over the past six weeks. There have been many hurdles in this initiative, with one in particular related to the rendering backend not working on Windows.
The team initially used the same backend it used on Linux, based on the Vulkan Graphics API, but this was resulting in compatibility issues for some users. As such, it implemented a completely new memory-efficient backend based on DirectX 11, which means that it should be fully supported on Windows 7 and later. This also required it to create a new implementation of GPU shaders in HLSL, just so that they could work with DirectX 11.
The team planned to use RenderDoc for graphics debugging of the renderer, but it caused Zed to crash on startup because the code editor uses Direct2D for text rendering, something that RenderDoc does not support. As a result, the developers switched to DirectWrite instead.
Brunsfeld noted that the engineers working on Zed also noticed that Zed was crashing on Windows due to GPU memory allocation failures, indicating inefficient use of memory. This wasn"t evident on macOS earlier because the latest Macs leverage unified memory, but it was prominent on Windows because GPU VRAM is separate on the OS and limited. Zed developers then worked with a team called Long Bridge Securities to identify and fix issues in Zed"s approach.
The executive also highlighted other differences in Windows such as the need for the Zed.exe file to be closed in order to apply an update which overwrites the existing .exe file, a restriction not present in Linux and macOS. The team resolved this by utilizing a dedicated "auto update helper" binary. Brunsfeld lamented that even crash reporting is different on Windows, forcing the team to rewrite its associated infrastructure.
All challenges haven"t been resolved either. Over the next few weeks, Zed"s engineers will be working on the following issues:
- Implement key bindings and shortcuts that feel native to Windows users
- Resolving bugs that pop up when you edit files on a remote Linux machine from Windows through SSH
- Developing first-class support for Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
- Account for mismatches in path conventions on Windows when implementing Zed extensions
- Improve Windows performance so it is as snappy as macOS
Brunsfeld hasn"t hinted at the Zed 1.0 release being delayed for Windows due to all of the issues highlighted above but it"s clear that operating system differences are causing numerous pains for developers, something that they are working through right now.