Microsoft officially announces Sudo for Windows in latest Windows 11 Preview

Early this month, we reported that Microsoft may soon bring Sudo support to Windows. Today, Microsoft announced the release of Sudo for Windows in its latest Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26052, allowing users to run elevated commands from an unelevated console session.

Sudo for Windows is a convenient and familiar way for users to elevate a command without having to open a new elevated console, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. The feature is inspired by the sudo command on Linux and other operating systems, which grants temporary administrative privileges to a user.

The company also announced that it is open-sourcing the project on GitHub, where it will provide more information and updates in the coming months. Users who want more functionality and options than Sudo for Windows offers can check out gsudo, a third-party tool developed by Gerardo Grignoli.

To enable Sudo for Windows, users need to go to the Settings > For Developers page in Windows Settings and toggle on the “Enable Sudo” option. Alternatively, they can run the command “sudo config –enable <configuration_option>” in an elevated console session.

Sudo for Windows supports three configuration options: in a new window, input closed, and inline. The first option opens a new elevated console window and runs the command in that window. The second option runs the elevated process in the current window, but with its input closed. The third option runs the elevated process with its input, output, and error connected to the current window.

When using Sudo for Windows, users will see a User Account Control (UAC) dialog asking them to confirm the elevation. Once they do, the process will be elevated according to the configuration option selected. Users can also run “sudo -h” in their console to see the optional parameters for the sudo command.

Sudo for Windows is one of the many new features that Microsoft is testing in its Windows 11 preview builds, which are expected to be released to the public later this year.