The quickest way to do it is in PowerShell. If you have this enabled already, skip and go straight to rebooting your PC to make sure you're ready to install. As already stated, WSL2 is a tiny virtual machine, so Windows needs to be prepared for that. If you don't already have this enabled, you'll need to turn it on before installing WSL2. If you have anything lower, you'll need to run Windows Update before going any further.Īssuming that's all good, the rest is straightforward.

For ARM64 systems: Version 2004 or higher, with Build 19041 or higher.

For 圆4 systems: Version 1903 or higher, with Build 18362 or higher.

You need to be on the following versions: There are also a couple of pre-requisites for using WSL2 on Windows 10. And that's why the installation differs a little from enabling regular old WSL. The latest iteration is essentially a tiny virtual machine that boots up in seconds and has a proper Linux kernel at its core. Now you have the Windows Subsystem for Linux enabled. Open PowerShell as administrator and enter this command: dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestartĮventually, you will need to reboot your PC, but you can leave it until later if you're going straight to installing WSL2. We have a full guide on getting set up with the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which you should check out for a full primer on getting started, but if you're looking for the quickest route, there's a single line of code to enable it on your machine. There's no direct path to just installing WSL2. But to have the newest version, you first need to have the first. That may sound slightly strange, but the methods of enabling the first iteration and the second are quite different. How to enable Windows Subsystem for Linuxīefore you can get WSL2, you need to have WSL. If you don't have the necessary version of Windows 10 installed to follow the simplified setup, the existing, much longer method still works. The setup process will begin and you can relax until it's finished. Once this is in place, open up PowerShell and enter this command:

Check windows install date