Microsoft announced at the 2026 Build Developer Conference that it will make Windows 11 a platform more suitable for developers. The key directions include improving performance and stability, while adding more development tools and applications, and further embracing the Linux experience.
This "developer-optimized" Windows 11 experience integrates common command-line tools, a familiar shell, a faster environment setup process, built-in ways to create and interact with Linux containers on Windows, and a new experimental Intelligent Terminal.
Microsoft said that it has built Coreutils for Windows based on the open source project uutils coreutils, which is a rewritten version of GNU coreutils implemented in Rust and can run across platforms. The company says these are Linux-style command-line tools that run natively on Windows, making it easy for developers switching between Linux, macOS, WSL, containers and cloud environments to continue using the commands and workflows they have developed over the years.
After making Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) open source at last year's Build conference, Microsoft has integrated WSL more deeply into Windows this time and launched new WSL containers. As the name suggests, this is a built-in way to create, run, and interact with Linux containers on Windows; Microsoft also provides a command line interface and API for it, and developers can even run Linux containers in native Windows applications. The feature is expected to enter public preview in the coming months.
In addition, Microsoft continues to build an experimental Intelligent Terminal for developers based on the existing Windows Terminal.