Unable to use after updating to 1.8.0

[willpower232]

Upon installing 1.8.0 by running the release .exe, I am no longer able to open any prompt.

I get the following message:

I presume that the empty parameter WSL on the shortcut "WSL Terminal %" would be to blame?
The shortcut path I have is %LOCALAPPDATA%\wsltty\bin\mintty.exe --WSL= -h err --configdir="%APPDATA%\wsltty"

I am using the original WSL and have not installed one from the store. I am on Windows 1703.

[mintty]

Ah! So without any store version, it seems that the concept of "default distribution" is not yet deployed.
(The command line is correct and would invoke the default distribution if there was any.)
Please use the specific shortcut "Bash on Windows Terminal" from the Start Menu instead for now.

[willpower232]

i.e. don't use this version of wsltty until I have a version from the Windows Store?

I can reinstall 1.7.9 and use that just fine.

[mintty]

No, I mean, please try to run "Bash on Windows Terminal" from the Start Menu. Does it work?
Also, please export the following registry subtree:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss]
and paste or upload the output file here.

[willpower232]

Oh! I literally don't have that option I'm afraid

Registry entries as follows

[mintty]

So let's find a workaround until this is fixed:
Do you have the Windows tool wslconfig available?
Can you set a default distribution with wslconfig /s Legacy?
Or you'll have to revert to the previous command line for now:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\wsltty\bin\mintty --wsl -h err --configdir="%APPDATA%\wsltty" -o Locale=C -o Charset=UTF-8 /bin/wslbridge -C~ -t /bin/bash
so you could still use the updated mintty version.

[willpower232]

No sign of wslconfig, I think that comes with the store versions which I don't think I can get until I get up to the Fall Creators Update. I'll try Fall Creators on a different machine if I can...

Using that shortcut as specified works nicely for now.

[nshtg]

Have you considered calling wsl.exe instead of bash.exe? wsl.exe will respect the default shell set by the user, which means you can use chsh like on a "real" unix system.

[mintty]

This does not seem to be related to this issue;

• With previous Windows releases that would support the Legacy "Bash on Windows", wsl.exe was not yet available.
• With recent Windows releases, bash.exe also invokes the user's default shell.
• The Windows gateway (bash.exe vs. wsl.exe) is invoked by the tty gateway (wslbridge) and cannot be chosen by mintty. (There was discussion about an option to change it (Not execute the .profile file #56, configurable launcher rprichard/wslbridge#14) but with the result it's not necessary in recent Windows releases.)

[fmoo]

This is happening to me also, on a fresh install of windows. I installed everything using the standard methods also. The "Bash on Ubuntu on Windows" cli shortcut is working just fine for me.

Edit: I don't have wslconfig in my path either.
Edit2: 1.7.9 is working just fine for me as well.

[willpower232]

@fmoo if you right click "WSL Terminal" on the start menu and choose "More" > "Open File Location" you can get to the shortcut file and change the properties so it links to the reference above (here #64 (comment))

I'll hopefully be updating to Fall Creators Update shortly so will switch to a store installed version and re-install 1.8.0 to get everything back to normal although I appreciate not everyone would be so keen to update.

[williscool]

Can confirm that downgrading to 1.7.9 just makes everything work.

My installation steps if it helps anyone at all.

• Install 1.8.0
• (flail around the internet trying to google "WSL distribution not found")
• (confusedly try to change the parameters to the short cuts. and figure out what options can be passed to WSL="" [have fun googling that lol])
• Install 1.7.9 over the original installation
• everything just works

[willpower232]

Interestingly my shortcuts did somehow reset themselves to the default values just now and I had to re apply the previous commands as before.

[saivert]

Also make sure you close down all instances of mintty before upgrading (otherwise the installer will not be able to install the new version that supports --WSL= argument). I had one remaining window hidden behind a bunch of other windows that I didn't pay attention to and thought I was struck by this issue as well. I'm on fall creators update and all is good now. Just wanted to mention it since that can be easy to miss.

[mintty]

Released 1.8.1. Please recheck.

[willpower232]

I had to delete all my shortcuts from the start menu and reinstall and now it seems to be working, hooray!

[julie-is-late]

I'm still having these issues on 1.8.1, stuck on the anniversary edition because it's an enterprise machine 😕
I get Unknown option '--WSL='

[willpower232]

@jshap70 have you tried manually removing all your WSL shortcuts and reinstalling?

[julie-is-late]

I have. it wasn't a case of me using an old shortcut, it was a new one that I was using. I'd changed the icon on the old ones, so that's how I could tell them apart. and I'd tried generating new ones by using the shell script in the installation dir.
What is the shortcut link supposed to look like now for the LEGACY install? Maybe I can help see if it's working at all,

[jxfreeman]

For me, I have the wslconfig tool. Running it with the /l option showed the current installation of ubuntu as:

Ubuntu-18.04

Using that I modified the shortcut --WSL= parameter to --WSL=Ubuntu-18.04 and it started properly launching.

[roachsinai]

@jxfreeman thanks a lot!