Skip to content

[Clarification] run wsl.exe --update in EACH windows 10 user command prompt, not just elevated command prompt #1126

@Growflavor

Description

@Growflavor

Is your feature request related to a problem:

In case others think like me and thought that just running wsl.exe --update in the elevated command prompt was sufficient:

WSLg worked fine for the distributions I installed in my windows 10 admin account,
but for distributions installed in my various other windows 10 user accounts, I was getting the 'display error', in other words, I encountered symptoms similar to those described in issue #793 -- specifically:

"When I do a "ls" on my Ubuntu WSL /mnt folder, I only see "c" and "wsl" folders
GUI Linux apps don't work and I noticed running "echo $DISPLAY" in Ubuntu WSL doesn't output anything"

In my case, running wsl.exe --version returned the expected information in my admin elevated command prompt:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>wsl --version
WSL version: 1.2.5.0
Kernel version: 5.15.90.1
WSLg version: 1.0.51
MSRDC version: 1.2.3770
Direct3D version: 1.608.2-61064218
DXCore version: 10.0.25131.1002-220531-1700.rs-onecore-base2-hyp
Windows version: 10.0.19045.3570

however, in my windows user terminals wsl.exe --version returned only the --help info which led me to the following comment in this post:

https://superuser.com/questions/1778332/how-can-i-find-my-wsl-release-number-not-version-not-build-not-kernel-not

"If wsl.exe --version simply returns help text (very likely given the older kernel that you are showing), then you are running an older release of WSL."

sure enough, after running wsl.exe --update in each of my windows 10 user command prompts (i.e not just my elevated command prompt) then wsl.exe --version worked as expected in my user shells and WSLg now also works as expected in my re-installed distributions in my various windows 10 user accounts.

Describe the solution you'd like:

If running wsl.exe --update in each user command prompt is the expected requirement/behavior, then for people who think like me it likely would be helpful to add an explanatory note in the WSLg README.md

https://github.com/microsoft/wslg#install-instructions-existing-wsl-install

since the current language appears to indicate "run the command wsl --update from an elevated command prompt."

Describe alternatives you've considered:

running wsl.exe --update in each user command prompt resolves the issue. I just do not know if that is the expected behavior.

Additional context:

or if I missed a clarification that already exists, please link to it here so that others that think/read like me may be helped by this post.

Thank you for WSLg!

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or request

    Type

    No type

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions