Microsoft has announced that it can now run the wsl2 based Linux distribution in Windows Server 2022. This change was introduced with the latest cumulative version, which made the build number of the operating system reach 20348.740. Although this change was not mentioned in the official update log, Microsoft's Craig Loewen confirmed the support for wsl2 in GitHub's comments, which is a response to the lack of continuous attention to its support in Windows Server 2022.
WSL2(Windows Subsystem for Linux 2) was first released in May 2019. Its first version in Windows 10 is 2004 and will be released in the first half of 2020. At that time, Microsoft also supported windows server through semi annual updates. Just like windows 10, only channel users running Windows Server with semi annual update frequency can get support for wsl2. Therefore, if you use Windows Server 2019, you are not very lucky.
Last year, Microsoft stopped the semi annual channel of windows server and returned to the main version, such as Windows Server 2022. However, like Windows Server 2019, this new version still does not include support for wsl2. Now, almost a year later, it finally came.
With wsl2, Microsoft began to run a complete Linux kernel with windows, which makes system calls fully compatible. The performance of the Linux distribution is significantly better than that of the distribution based on the original version of WSL. Now, Linux runs in a virtual machine (VM), but it is designed to be lighter and more native than traditional virtual machines.
If you are running Windows Server 2022 and you want to use wsl2 Linux distribution, you can get the latest update from windows update (you need to find it manually), or you can download it here:
If you are not in a hurry, this change will be included in the next patch Tuesday update, which will come on June 14.