How to Install and Use WSL2 on Windows 10: A Step-by-Step Guide

Mansoor Barri
1 min readMar 25, 2023

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Prerequisites

You need to enable the WSL feature by:

  • Open the Start menu and search for “Turn Windows features on or off.”
  • Scroll down and check the box next to “Windows Subsystem for Linux.”
  • Click “OK” and wait for the feature to be installed

Install a Linux Distro

You can choose between variety of Linux Distributions for WSL however I recommend using Debian as explained here

To install Debian, open CMD or Powershell as admin and run:

winget install -e --id Debian.Debian

Setup

  • Open a Command Prompt window as an administrator.
  • Type the following command and press Enter:
wsl --set-default-version 2
  • Wait for the command to finish running.

Start Using it

Now that you have set up WSL2, you can start using it. To do this, follow these steps:

  • Open the Start menu and search for the Linux distribution you installed.
  • Click on the distribution to open it.
  • Follow the prompts to set up your Linux environment.

that’s it | for full version and early access to guides, writeups and articles. Please visit mansoorbarri.com

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Mansoor Barri
Mansoor Barri

Written by Mansoor Barri

Profile designed to share technology content about Penetration testing, Linux and Windows.

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