Microsoft is taking the first step toward making WSL available as a decoupled app available via the Microsoft Store via a first preview release.
Microsoft is making available today, October 11, a preview version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) for Windows 11 in the Microsoft Store. This isn’t a new version of WSL; Microsoft is just making the existing WSL 2 available in the Store as an option at this point. Microsoft’s goal in doing this is to get users the latest WSL updates and features faster, according to the blog post announcing the new preview. Up until now, WSL has been installed as an optional component inside Windows. As noted in Microsoft’s post, the binaries that make up WSL’s logic in that optional component are part of the Windows image, and thus are serviced and updated when the OS itself is. By decoupling WSL from the Windows image and making it a separate app available from the Store, users can get updates to the app independently of the OS.
