The problem is that not all of the software someone might want to run on Windows handles backslashes gracefully. There are situations in which for example VS C

The problem is that not all of the software someone might want to run on Windows handles backslashes gracefully. There are situations in which for example VS Code will run git commands "behind the scenes" (without ever showing the command to the user). The way it is now, VS Code sometimes obtains a file name to be used as an argument to a git command from a Microsoft function that return the name with backslashes, gives the name to git, which doesn't consider a backslash a path separator, so git causes an error, "no file named foo\bar\bash," or such, and since that git command line (command with arguments) was never manually submitted or entered by the user, the user can't get past the error just by replacing some backslashes with slashes, then resubmitting the command line. Microsoft could submit patches to the git project to make git recognize the backslash as a path separator, but there is no guarantee that the maintainers of git would accept the patches. So, Microsoft could end up choosing to bend (on the backslash issue) to make Windows more compatible with git -- and other Unix-centric projects.