Microsoft had a bunch of solutions to handle their massive Windows repo: VFS for Git (GVFS), Scalar, and now it has a bunch of MS specific patches on top of the official git client, but apparently that one is also not required any more as partial clone is now supported on azure as well (which is another such implementation from Microsoft employees that made it to both GitHub and upstream git).

So yeah, solved problem thanks to Microsoft. Solved multiple times in fact, and because it's Microsoft, only not all had Linux installers: https://github.com/microsoft/scalar/issues/323#issuecomment-...

https://github.blog/2020-01-17-bring-your-monorepo-down-to-s...

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/devops/introducing-scalar/

https://github.com/microsoft/git

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/devops/git-partial-clone-now-...