Microsoft has finally integrated support for accessing Linux files of different distros in Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) directly from File Explorer in its latest Windows Insider Preview Build 19603. With this addition, users will see a small Linux Tux icon in the navigation pane of File Explorer for faster and easier file access.
“We’ve had the ability to access your Linux files since Windows 1903, but now you can easily get to them from your left-hand navigation pane in File Explorer. Selecting the Linux icon will show you a view of all your distros, and selecting those will place you in the Linux root file system for that distro.”, wrote Microsoft on its blog post.
While people who’ve embraced the command line interface for file navigation might not feel much of a difference here, there’s no denying this would simplify the user experience of people who prefer simple GUI, especially if there are multiple Linux distros in the system.
The latest Insider build also adds a file cleanup recommendations feature that gathers unused files so that you can easily delete them if they’re not necessary to save disk space.
Apart from these key changes, the build ships with the recently announced Microsoft News Bar (Beta), adds support for Canon’s latest CR3 raw format, and comes with miscellaneous bug fixes and improvements.
Windows Fast Ring Insiders can now gain access to all these features by updating to the latest version(19603) via Windows update. The company will be adding these features in the stable version on a later date, most likely towards the end of the year.
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Over many years of users imploring a resistant Microsoft to make alternative filesystems accessible, they continually refused — after all, that forced manufacturers to license their crippled, archaic and filesize-deficient fat32 filesystem, and it made it harder for users to adopt alternative technology. Now they changed their minds? Why? Could it be that Windows has driven so many to alternative OSes with their forced, botched updates, Draconian ToS and spyware/data theft? From a company that incorporated ‘self-destruct code’ that crashed Windows when it detected another OS on your pc, who paid manufacturers to exclude alternative OSes, who argued that Windows would not share the boot sector with another OS, and who created sabotage updates to force people to upgrade to Vista, I can only see Microsoft as trustworthy as a wild, rabid animal in need of a mercy-bullet. Recalcitrant, anti-competetive, anti-consumer company that they are, one can be sure that they disguise their thirst for data theft behind false amity. Never let Windows access your alternative filesystem drives; encrypt them to be sure.
Go to hell, Microsoft.