How to install WSL ?

  • Open PowerShell as Administrator and type the following commands. 
    • Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform -All -NoRestart
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux -All -NoRestart
  • Restart your PC.
  • Go to the Microsoft Store and search for Linux.



  • Install your favourite linux distro and open it from the Start menu.
  • On First Start, it'll complete the intallation of the distro and will take few seconds.
  • After that the distro is all yours !

Some useful WSL commands

  • Start your Default distro. wsl
  • Start a specific distro. wsl -d distroName
  • List all your distros and check their status. wsl -l -v
  • Make a specific distro your Default distro. wsl --set-default distroName
  • Change the version of your distro. wsl --set-version distroName version(1 or 2)
  • Change your default WSL version. wsl --set-default-version version(1 or 2)
  • Close all your running distros and the WSL VM. wsl --shutdown
  • Close a specific distro. wsl --terminate distroName
  • Uninstall a distro. wsl --unregister distroName

Do you know that WSL2 uses a real LINUX KERNEL and an EXT4 File System ?

If you want to know more How-Tos and tricks on WSL2, which is much much faster than WSL1, go to THIS link.