The official Coreutils package lets you run native Linux commands directly in the Windows 11 Terminal. Here’s how to install it.
If you are someone who switches between Windows and macOS or Linux and also uses the command line, you know the pain of executing commands because you need to remember different commands to do the same thing. For example, on my MacBook, I often use the ls -la command to list all files and directories. To achieve the same thing in Command Prompt, I’d have to run dir /a. While this is not a big deal, the muscle memory and cognitive load of remembering multiple command variations, as well as the tendency to make mistakes quickly, can catch up. This is especially true if you use the command line often.
Generally, you can reduce this by simply enabling WSL and installing your favorite Linux distro. However, for simple everyday tasks, launching the WSL instance, navigating the file system, and dealing with WSL quirks is not feasible.
Thankfully, that just changed. Microsoft recently released Coreutils for Windows, which lets you run several core Linux commands such as pwd, ls, cp, mv, rm, mkdir, touch, and cat natively on your Windows 11 computer. All you have to do is install the Coreutils package, and you are good to go. No additional configuration is needed.
In this quick and easy guide, I’ll show you how to install Coreutils, how to use it, and what its limitations are. Let’s get started.
Before You Start
- To install and use Coreutils in Windows 11, PowerShell 7.4 or higher is required. Here’s how you can check the PowerShell version. If you are using an older version, follow this guide to install PowerShell 7.4 or later on Windows 11.
- Administrator rights are required to install Coreutils in Windows 11.
Steps to Install Coreutils on Windows 11
Install Using Winget
The simplest way to install Coreutils on your computer is to use the winget package manager. Here’s how:
- Right-click the Start button and select “Terminal”.
- Run the
winget install Microsoft.Coreutilscommand. - The command installs Coreutils on your computer.
- Once done, close the Terminal window.
Important note: If your computer doesn’t have PowerShell 7.4 or higher, the installation will fail.
Install by Downloading the Coreutils EXE File from GitHub
If you are unable to use the winget command and are looking for an alternative, you can download the Coreutils exe from the official GitHub page and install it directly. Here’s how:
First, click here to open the official Microsoft Coreutils GitHub page. Once the page is fully loaded, click the “Assets” section to expand it. Next, click the EXE file link to download the Coreutils exe file.
Note: If you are using an ARM CPU, you must download the arm64 exe file.
After downloading the EXE file. Open the File Explorer by pressing the “Windows key + E” shortcut, find the downloaded EXE file in your Downloads folder, and double-click it.
The above action starts the Coreutils installer. Do not change any default options and simply click “Next“.
Click the “Finish” button.
With that, the Coreutils for Windows 11 is successfully installed.
Important note: If your computer doesn’t have PowerShell 7.4 or later, the installation will fail with the message “Failed to update PowerShell profiles“.
Running Core Linux Commands Natively in Windows Using Coreutils
Once the Coreutils package has been installed, you can run core Linux commands directly in Terminal, PowerShell, and Command Prompt. No extra configuration needed.
For example, to list files and directories in Command Prompt, you can run the ls command instead of the native dir command.If you want, you can also run Linux commands with flags. For example, you can run ls --color=auto to show a colorful output, just like in Linux.
Similarly, you can use the cat command to view, create, and combine file contents.
Limitations of Coreutils
Coreutils for Windows is still in development. As such, not all core Linux commands are supported. To make things easier, Microsoft maintains a list of supported commands on its GitHub page. You can check it.
Issues with PowerShell: While all supported commands work in Command Prompt, some may behave differently in PowerShell than expected. This is because Microsoft mapped familiar Linux commands to Windows cmdlets and created aliases. For example, in PowerShell, ls is actually an alias for Get-ChildItem. cp points to Copy-Item. As such, these aliases take precedence over the Coreutils commands.
If you really want to run native Linux commands in PowerShell and avoid built-in aliases, you can manually remove them using the following command. Replace <alias-command> with the actual command.
Remove-Item alias:<alias-command> -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
For example, to remove the ls alias for Get-ChildItem, run the following command. Once the alias is removed, you can run the Coreutils command in PowerShell without any issues.
Remove-Item alias:ls -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Windows-specific caveats: Since the Windows file system differs from Linux, all POSIX-specific commands like chmod, chown, chroot, groups, hostid, etc., are not available.
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That is all. It is that simple to install and use Coreutils in Windows 11. If you have any questions or need help, comment below. I’ll be happy to help.
