Microsoft has released Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2.7.0, tagged as Pre-Release now. WSL is a tool that allows running Linux applications on Windows. Version 2.7.0 marks the second significant update following the open-source release its components under the MIT license. Previously, the WSL components related to the Linux kernel and the wslg graphics stack were open-sourced , while all associated tools were proprietary.
WSL 2 provides a virtual machine with a full Linux kernel (based on the 6.6 branch) capable of running varios Linux distributions. The kernel includes WSL-specific changes, such as optimizations to reduce startup time and memory consumption, the ability to reclaim memory reclaimed by Linux processes, and settings to eliminate unnecessary drivers and subsystems. It installs the Linux OS in a separate disk image (VHD) with an ext4 file system and a virtual network adapter.
Notable changes in WSL 2.7.0
- Added support for Debian 13, Ubuntu 25.10, Fedora 43, SUSE Linux 16, openSUSE Leap 16, openSUSE Tumbleweed, Kali 2025.3, and the December build of Arch Linux.
- The Linux kernel has been updated to version 6.6.114 .
- Updated versions of the WSLg 1.0.71 graphics stack, .NET, Microsoft.NETCore.App.Runtime, and NuGet packages.
- The wslsettings configurator has been improved.
- Added automount.cgroups parameter to wsl.conf to select Cgroup version.
- Implemented forced shutdown of a virtual machine if it freezes while stopping all services.
- The virtual machine ID is now passed to the initialization process of running distributions. The "--vm-id" option has been added to the
wslinfoapp. - Added the hvsocket kernel parameter for logging Hyper-V hypervisor events during boot.
Details are on GitHub.
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