Microsoft Open‑Sources Sudo for Windows – How to Enable and Configure It

Enable Sudo for Windows

Open Settings → For Developers and toggle the “Enable Sudo” option, or run the command:

sudo config --enable <configuration_option>

Configuration Options

forceNewWindow – Opens a new window to run the elevated command. This is the default behavior.

disableInput – Runs the elevated process in the current window but disables its standard input, so commands that require further user interaction will fail.

normal – Mirrors the classic Unix sudo experience: the elevated process runs in the current window with its stdin, stdout, and stderr attached, allowing interactive input and output routing.

Example Usage

With the default configuration, the following runs netstat -ab with elevated privileges: sudo netstat -ab When disableInput is selected, the new process will not accept any user input, which can break tools that prompt for data after elevation.

The normal mode provides the most familiar sudo behavior across operating systems, keeping the process’s I/O streams connected to the original terminal.

Future Work

Microsoft plans to expand documentation in the coming months and to publish more details on the security implications of the “inline” (normal) configuration.

Official blog post:

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/introducing-sudo-for-windows/

GitHub repository:

https://github.com/microsoft/sudo