What's Changed

• Fix json invalid utf-8 from IconPath by @CarlosNihelton in #13340
• Switch wslinfo --vm-id to not rely on presence of VM ID environment variable by @benhillis in #13318
• Fixed CVE-2025-53788 (Details to be published on Aug 12th)
• install: do not attempt to install distros if a reboot is required by @benhillis in #13298
• wslsettings: appropriately set heading level for PageHeaderTextBlockStyle by @benhillis in #13257
• Expose the VM ID inside user distros by @chelnak in #13212
• Don't display a warning when the binfmt process doesn't have a controlling terminal by @OneBlue in #13176
• Fix C1010070 compilation error in wslsettings by @Mlekow in #12928
• Look up systemctl from $PATH for user session checks by @K900 in #13157
• Update Microsoft.RemoteDesktop.Client.MSRDC.SessionHost to version 1.2.6353 by @benhillis in #13271

New Contributors

• @Mlekow made their first contribution in #12928
• @K900 made their first contribution in #13157
• @g0tmi1k made their first contribution in #13182
• @chelnak made their first contribution in #13212
• @kirancheparthi made their first contribution in #13240
• @mohiuddin-khan-shiam made their first contribution in #13201
• @stratusjerry made their first contribution in #13314
• @CarlosNihelton made their first contribution in #13340

Full Changelog: 2.6.0...2.6.1

• Fixed CVE-2025-53788 (Details to be published on Aug 12th)

• First open source release of WSL
• Various stability improvements
• Update localized strings
• Don't throw when unregistering a distro that has a BasePath that doesn't exist (solves #13004)
• Fix distribution download failing if the URL contains parameters
• Fix various issues with systemd user sessions (solves #13053)
• Fix wslsettings crash when invoked from wslservice
• Set MOVEFILE_WRITE_THROUGH when moving distribution VHD's (solves #13055)
• Discard BOM header when parsing the Windows 'hosts' file (solves #9642)
• Correctly report corrupted disks when mount() fails with EUCLEAN (solves #13074)
• Don't use a ? prefix when resolving the distribution location (solves #13064)
• Solve potential failure while downloading a distribution if LastError is non zero

• Update to WSL Kernel 6.6.87.2 (solves #12987, #12983, #13031)
• Merged PR 13054145: Make the post import distribution checks less strict (Solves #13036)

• Reduce file descriptor soft limit to 10240 (solves #12985)
• Add a systemd override binfmt-support.service to protect wsl's interop entry (solves #13000)

• Update Linux kernel to 6.6.87.1-1
• Update WindowsAppSDK to version 1.7.250401001
• Increase the soft file descriptor limit to 1024 * 1024 (solves #12837)
• Add logic to detect when an imported distribution is invalid
• Move Linux side warnings to new warning infrastructure
• Fix potential deadlock when converting a distribution to WSL1 or WSL2
• Fix download logic to download to a file instead of in memory (solves #12805)
• Use a systemd-generator to create the wslg and binfmt units

• Fix docker by adding back modules loaded at boot (solves #12748)
• Fix command line parsing preventing importing or exporting from stdout / stdin
• Bring back bridged networking mode
• Update to 6.6.84.1 WSL Kernel
• wslinfo: print newline after usage
• Add initgroups helper to work around musl limitation (solves #12755)
• Remove invalid kmesg error when gui apps are disabled
• Fallback to GrantVmAccess when attaching a VHD fails with ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED
• Update UtilConnectToInteropServer to respect g_InitPid and minor wslinfo updates (solves #12714)
• Put sparse vhd support behind an --allow-unsafe flag.
• wslsettings: fix networking mode selection logic (solves #12745)

• Fix the wsl --update --pre-release logic to correctly handle backports and always pick the actual latest
• Set LX_WSL2_INSTALL_PATH even when gui apps are disabled
• Introduce general.instanceIdleTimeout to control distribution termination timeouts (solves #10138, #9401)
• Modify config file parsing to allow empty strings
• Update Microsoft.RemoteDesktop.Client.MSRDC.SessionHost to version 1.2.6074
• Change behavior of a custom kernel with no modules to not log a warning.
• Implement --vhd-size and --fixed-vhd arguments to wsl.exe --install
• Detect when the VM crashes, and capture dmesg
• Resolve kernel warning about ip_local_port_range having start / end with same parity
• Update WSLENV logic to allow passing /l and /p together to translate paths and path lists
• Don't throw when processing an empty argument (solves #12649)
• Disable DNS tunneling if global secure access client is present
• Remove support bridged networking
• Fix wsl.exe --install --enable-wsl1 to work when run as non-elevated
• Fix partial read causing failure to import WSL1 distribution
• wslsettings: Launch MSI version of wsl.exe instead of the one in system32

• Update Microsoft.Identity.MSAL.WSL.Proxy to version 0.1.1

• Fix broken /etc/hosts generation and correctly handle empty domain names (solves #12275)
• Improve hardenning of the WSL binfmt interpreter (solves #8843)
• Gracefully handle situations where the user's defaultDistribution registry value points to a missing registration (solves #12595)
• Update WSLg to 1.0.66
• Add support for exporting distributions via wsl --export as .tar.xz
• Change wslpluginapi.h Windows.h header include to lowercase (solves #12580)
• Move the user token duplication logic to LxssUserSession so valid user tokens are passed to plugins (solves #12554)
• Update Kernel to 6.6.75 and switch modules to a vhd
• Remove cgroupv1 support
• Automatically start the distribution when a .wsl file is double clicked.
• Fix potential deadlock in the IO relay when stdin is a pipe (solves #12523)
• Introduce DefaultNetworkingMode WSL policy value
• Add support for CRLF in /etc/wsl.conf (solves #12502)
• Check automount setting before mounting admin drives (solves #12443)
• Remove TrustedInstaller registry protections before writing the registry during installation (solves #11376)
• WSLg: Create /run/user/ as a tmpfs mount that systemd expects (solves #11261)
• Add support for distro compressed with xz, or bzip for WSL1
• Implement OOBE for WSL1 distros. (solves #12398)
• Update Microsoft.Identity.MSAL.WSL.Proxy to version 0.1.1
• Implement config file warnings on Linux
• Implement localization on Linux
• Update 'wsl.exe --import-in-place` to call plugin API and do modern distro operations (solves #12370)
• Add support for resizing a distribution via wsl --manage --resize