win-sudo

If we open msysgit as administrator, we can use it as if we were root. However, it is often easier to open without administrator privileges.

Well, Git comes with Bash emulator and you can use *nix commands. "sudo" and "apt-get" are not such - there are tools, programs if you like which obviously you don't have.

Say no to these problems! Install win-sudo and use sudo and su as on Linux.

No more "Why must I open context menu and use a separate window?" questions.

(disclaimer: the video is a bit outdated. You should include s/ subdirectory of the repo to PATH instead of repo root. But you better check Installation section)

Installation

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/purplesyringa/win-sudo/master/install.sh | sh

Usage

sudo

sudo command accepts path to program and then argument list.

$ sudo pip install gevent
Collecting gevent...

You will be prompted for UAC acception (if enabled) and then a new session will be spawned as a sub-shell.

su

su accepts no arguments and runs bash shell. You can exit by typing exit.

$ su
# exit
$

Why win-sudo?

1. No need for installation: download and use.
2. Native: no Go, Python, etc.
3. Open-source: no viruses.
4. Small: easy to contribute and understand.

Known issues

winpty

Some windows commands (such as cmd) don't work fine. So:

$ sudo cmd
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.15036]
(c) Microsoft Corporation, 2017. All right reserved.

C:\Users\Ivanq>echo 1 <--
echo 1 <--
1

C:\Users\Ivanq>

The command is prompted twice. Though the same happens when calling just cmd, not sudo cmd.

To fix this, run sudo winpty cmd instead. (but you will have to run sudo winpty cmd //c "echo 1" instead of sudo cmd /c "echo 1")

Job support

win-sudo doesn't support jobs, so when running su or sudo bash you may get:

bash: cannot set terminal process group (7152): Operation not permitted
bash: no job control in this shell

This is harmless, so you can ignore this warning.