For years, Windows has been the OS developers tolerated rather than chose. At Build 2026, Microsoft made its most concrete push yet to change that. The announcements span four areas: a developer-optimized Windows 11 shell experience, a new OS-level security layer for AI agents, expanded on-device AI APIs, and purpose-built developer hardware. The throughline is simple: stop making developers leave Windows to get real work done.
The shell gets a Linux makeover
Microsoft used Build 2026 to announce a developer-optimized Windows 11 experience that folds Linux-style command-line tools, WSL containers, AI-assisted terminals, and one-command workstation setup into the operating system's developer story. These are not cosmetic changes.
Coreutils for Windows is built from the uutils open-source project, a cross-platform reimplementation of GNU Coreutils in Rust, and is now generally available.
The pitch is straightforward: whether you're moving between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers, or cloud environments, the commands and workflows you've built over years just work on Windows natively.
cat is not interesting because Windows lacked a way to read a file, and ls is not interesting because File Explorer suddenly became obsolete
-- what matters is that your shell scripts, CI pipelines, and muscle memory survive the jump between machines without modification.
WSL containers provide a built-in way to create, run, and interact with Linux containers on Windows, coming soon to public preview. Modern container workflows on Windows often depend on third-party tooling, adding setup overhead, licensing cost, and limited enterprise control. WSL containers address this with two interfaces:
- WSL containers CLI -- a new binary to directly build, run, and deploy Linux containers on Windows, out of the box
- WSL containers API -- programmatic access to run Linux containers from native Windows apps, enabling local AI/ML workflows, testing pipelines, and Linux-based processing
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