“…Our previous studies utilized carboxybenzyl (CB) donors which require pre‐activation; therefore, we prepared thioglycoside derivatives 9 , 10 , and 11 to investigate whether glycosylations under standard (pre‐mix) conditions would prevent 1,4‐anhydrosugar formation. Glycosylation of 9 – 10 by pre‐activation with Ph 2 SO/Tf 2 O, followed by addition of glycosyl acceptor 7 (Table , entries 1,3, and 5), mainly led to 1,4‐anhydrosugar as expected . Galactoside 11 does not suffer from 1,4‐anhydrosugar formation as the C‐4 benzyl is positioned equatorially and afforded the α‐galactoside with excellent stereoselectivity ( α / β =20/1, Table , entry 5), in line with earlier reports .…”