[distro.exe] not discoverable - it is _not_ Ubuntu.exe

[shoffmeister]

The documentation casually refers to [distro.exe], but does not support in discovering what the real name of the exe is.

The references to Ubuntu.exe were valid, once upon a time, but only through guesswork was I able to discover that my Ubuntu 18.04 is called ... ubuntu1804.ex

Please amend the instructions above indicating how to discover [distro.exe] for all installed distributions.

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Document Details

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• ID: 9a09359b-8092-fb08-353c-ae03a91f26b6
• Version Independent ID: 6a9228f4-5240-8b14-3077-00340bcfdcf1
• Content: Linux User Account and Permissions
• Content Source: WSL/user-support.md
• Service: windows-subsystem-for-linux
• Product: windows-subsystem-for-linux
• GitHub Login: @scooley
• Microsoft Alias: scooley

[skierpage]

I had this problem too on another doc page (#267). I had installed Debian GNU/Linux from the Windows Store, and it isn't obvious how to find a Windows app's directory or program name. What I did was run a Windows command prompt as Administrator, cd \Program Files\WindowsApps, looked for the app name (in my case TheDebianProject.DebianGNULinux_1.1.4.0_x64__76v4gfsz19hv4) in a dir listing, then entered dir TheDeb[Tab] to get a listing of the app's contents which included debian.exe.

(And the reason I didn't just type debian is that I'm so used to bash/zsh autocompleting program names that I gave up when typing deb[Tab] in a Windows command prompt didn't complete 😃 )

[pacexy]

thank you @skierpage!

[craigloewen-msft]

WSL has gone through many updates and revisions, and this issue may be fixed in the latest version. We're cleaning out some of our older issues, and will mark this as closed. If you are still experiencing this issue on the latest version please feel free to reopen this! Thank you!