Today, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 Version 2004 and later versions can be installed through the wsl.exe –install command to install the required content of WSL. Microsoft stated that the previous process of setting up WSL was too complicated and involved opening multiple designs and installing multiple packages.
Now, Microsoft has simplified the process into one command. Windows 10 users can now simply open a command prompt window with administrator rights and run wsl.exe –install. After hitting the Enter key, the required WSL optional functions will be executed in the background, the Ubuntu release version will be installed by default, and the latest WSL Linux kernel version will be installed on your machine. After finishing and restarting the device, your distribution will start after you start it again to complete the installation.
In addition, you can find the list of Linux distributions available for installation by entering the command wsl –list –online in PowerShell or Windows command prompt. To install a distribution other than the Ubuntu defaults, use the following command: wsl –install -d
Replace with the name of the Linux distribution found in the previous list command. This installation command can be used to install for the first time or to add other distributions after you have installed WSL with the default Ubuntu distribution.
Microsoft also includes some additional commands to help you use this backport to manage WSL instances. You can use wsl –update to manually update the WSL Linux kernel, or use wsl –update rollback to roll back to the previous WSL Linux kernel version.
Finally, you can use wsl –status to view general information about WSL configuration, such as the default release type, default release, and kernel version. This update is part of KB5004296, and you can find complete instructions on how to make sure to install it and its changes here.
