Unhandled Exception: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

[RossBencina]

Hi. I'm getting the above error when trying to run .\LxRunOffline.exe list or .\LxRunOffline.exe install. Full log is below. I downloaded the .zip version of LxRunOffline. Here are my system specs:

• Windows 10 Pro
• Version 1709
• OS Build 16299.64

Windows Developer Mode was already enabled and I ran Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux and rebooted before trying LxRunOffline.

I have not previously tried to install any distributions using other WSL installers.

Here is is my PS session. PS was run as administrator.

PS C:\LxRunOffline-v2.1.1> .\LxRunOffline.exe help
LxRunOffline 2.1.1
Copyright (C) 2017 DDoSolitary

  list                List all installed distributions.

  default             Get or set the default distribution, which is used by bash.exe.

  install             Install a new distribution.

  register            Register an existing installation directory.

  uninstall           Uninstall a distribution

  unregister          Unregister a distribution but not delete the directory containing it.

  move                Move a distribution to a new directory.

  run                 Run a command in a distribution.

  dir                 Get the installation directory of a distribution.

  config-env          Get or set the default environment variables of a distribution. (Currently unusable because of a
                      problem of the command line parser library.)

  config-uid          Get or set the UID of the default user of a distribution.

  config-kernelcmd    Get or set the default kernel command line of a distribution.

  config-flag         Get or set some flags of a distribution. See
                      https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/mt826872(v=vs.85).aspx for details.

  help                Display more information on a specific command.

  version             Display version information.

PS C:\LxRunOffline-v2.1.1> .\LxRunOffline.exe list

Unhandled Exception: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at LxRunOffline.Wsl.<ListDistros>d__6.MoveNext()
   at System.Linq.Buffer`1..ctor(IEnumerable`1 source)
   at System.Linq.Enumerable.ToArray[TSource](IEnumerable`1 source)
   at LxRunOffline.Program.<>c.<Main>b__0_0(ListOptions opts)
   at LxRunOffline.Program.Main(String[] args)
PS C:\LxRunOffline-v2.1.1-B> .\LxRunOffline.exe install -n wsl-ubuntu-16.04.2 -f "F:\Archived Installers\OS Images For W
SL\16.04.2-server-cloudimg-amd64-root.tar.gz" -d c:\wsl-ubuntu-16.04.2

Unhandled Exception: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at LxRunOffline.Wsl.FindDistroKey(String distroName, Boolean write)
   at LxRunOffline.Wsl.InstallDistro(String distroName, String tarGzPath, String targetPath)
   at LxRunOffline.Program.<>c.<Main>b__0_2(InstallOptions opts)
   at LxRunOffline.Program.Main(String[] args)
PS C:\LxRunOffline-v2.1.1>

[DDoSolitary]

It is because new Windows installations doesn't have registry keys that LxRunOffline tries to read. I'll fix it ASAP. For now you can save following content to a .reg file and double click the file to import it to the registry:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss]
"DefaultDistribution"=""

[RossBencina]

Thank you! It seems to be working now :)