All the hubbub around sudo coming to Windows might have been premature, as the headline feature of the latest Windows 11 builds across the Canary and Dev channels seems to be warnings of irretrievable data loss – or, a massive headache for users.
Dev Drives, first introduced in June 2023, are optimised volumes catering to development and working directories, offering performance increases of ‘up to 30%’ when building projects.
However, build 26052, first released in early February 2024, would be the first trace of Dev Drives breaking during a rollback, and this has persisted through to the very latest build 26058.
Same dev drive, same dev channel
In software development, Canary and Dev versions invariably refer to bleeding edge releases of a certain application or, here, operating system. The difference between the two is even smaller in this case, given that there are no code differences between the Canary and Dev builds of 26058.
These channels differ from stable versions in that, while stable channel releases should be less prone to critical bugs and crashes, they tend to be the last to get new features. It’ll be a long time, for example, before the ‘sudo’ command makes an appearance in a stable Windows release.
So, despite the bug, this should ultimately not befuddle any self-respecting developer already aware of the importance of backing up in the cloud and to an external hard drive (or three). Microsoft did, however, flag up the issue on the unceasing hate sluice formerly known as Twitter.
Difficult second build syndrome
February 2024’s latest Windows build was never going to match up to the mind-melding, ‘oh my God’, tsunami of shock that was the sudo reveal, but still contains some neat features.
Low vision users can now take advantage of a pointer indicator to locate the cursor, the widgets board sees user interface (UI) improvements like a navigation bar and notification counts in the taskbar, and, should you be unlucky enough to still be using the default Windows 11 UI, labels have been added to file explorer.
Microsoft are warning that some of these features won’t be available to all insiders just now, prioritising the Canary and Dev channels, and that the installation itself could fail if users don’t use Windows Update, or even be forced to roll back regardless.
Via Windows Latest
