The anticipation surrounding the arrival of sudo on Windows may have been premature, as the latest Windows 11 builds in the Canary and Dev channels have brought attention to potential data loss issues, posing a significant challenge for users.
Introduced in June 2023, Dev Drives are optimized volumes tailored for development and working directories, offering performance enhancements of up to 30% during project builds. However, with build 26052 in early February 2024, the first signs of Dev Drives encountering issues during a rollback surfaced, persisting through the latest build 26058.
In the realm of software development, Canary and Dev versions typically denote latest releases of an application or operating system. Notably, the code differences between the Canary and Dev builds of 26058 are minimal. These channels differ from stable versions in that stable releases are less prone to critical bugs and crashes but are slower to receive new features. Consequently, it may be a significant time before the ‘sudo’ command becomes available in a stable Windows release.
Despite the encountered bug, knowledgeable developers understand the importance of backing up data in the cloud and to external hard drives. Microsoft acknowledged the issue on social media, highlighting the ongoing communication with users.
While the latest Windows build of February 2024 may not have generated as much buzz as the introduction of sudo, it does bring some noteworthy features. For low vision users, a pointer indicator has been introduced to help locate the cursor, while the widgets board sees user interface (UI) improvements such as a navigation bar and notification counts in the taskbar. Additionally, users still utilizing the default Windows 11 UI will benefit from the added labels in file explorer.
Microsoft has cautioned that some of these features may not be immediately available to all insiders, prioritizing the Canary and Dev channels, and the installation process could encounter issues if users do not utilize Windows Update or may even necessitate a rollback.
Source: Windows Latest
