WSL 2 distros finally available on Windows Server 2022

Linux Penguin

In other word, WSL 2 now available on WS 2022. Microsoft finally announces support for WSL2 distros on Windows Server 2022, a few weeks after the company started the public testing on GitHub.

The option was previously only made available to seekers, last month.

Microsoft announced what is a fairly big news via a quick tweet from WSL program manager Craig Loewen. The new Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 functionality had not been available by default for these users, as it required the installation of a special update.

WSL Windows Server

This update was finally officially released on Patch Tuesday, and it has now been made generally available for everyone.

Announcing the general availability, the WSL program manager explained:

“You can now use Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2 type distros on Windows Server 2022! We’re excited to make this change so that now you can have the same modern WSL experience whether you use a Windows with Server or Desktop SKU.”

The software titan, of course, first talked about this change on GitHub when it was offered to folks who wanted to use it early. Now, with this becoming part of the latest update to Windows Server, users can simply check for the latest updates on their Windows Server 2022 machines and deploy the update.

The update in question is KB5014678.

Doing so will enable support for WSL 2 distros on their systems, though not by default. To enable the feature, they will still need to run the install command in PowerShell, details of which are provided in the announcement post above.

Pleasing development, this.

With this, WSL will now finally be supported on both the desktop and server variants of Windows.