Wsl2: Why Do I Have To Shutdown Wsl To Restart Wsl After Restarting Pc

The Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) is a powerful tool that gives direct access to run a Linux environment right in your Windows. But when a PC restarts, why does WSL2 need to be shut down to be restarted? The answer lies in how WSL2 works.

WSL2 runs with the assistance of the Windows operating system. Specifically, it operates through what’s called a virtual machine monitor (VMM). This technology lets you multitask with different operating systems on the same machine – basically allowing WSL2 to run on top of Windows.

However, In relation to a PC being restarted, it means Windows – the main operating system – has been restarted. As a result of this, WSL2, which relies on Windows to run, must also undergo a reset process.

When the Windows operating system restarts, so does the environments running on top of it. It mimics a kind of ‘power cut’, hence, the WSL2 environment needs to be rebooted from scratch. Thus, you first have to shut down WSL2 before you can initiate the reset process. It effectively “turns off” the virtual Linux kernel and “restarts” it under the new, freshly-booted larger Windows operating system.

Therefore, if you’ve just restarted your PC and want to use WSL2, you will need to re-launch it again.

In less technical terms, think of WSL2 like an application running on your PC. If you restart your computer, all apps need to be closed and reopened. Similarly, WSL2 must be shut down and restarted to function correctly on the rebooted Windows system.

Here’s a simple command line code you can run to restart your WSL2:

 wsl --shutdown && wsl 

In summary, the reason you need to shut down WSL2 to restart it after restarting your PC involves the intricate relationship between the Windows operating system, WSL2, and the VMM that ties them together. Consider exploring more about these components to enhance your understanding of how WSL2 functions.
When it comes to running Linux on Windows, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has been a game-changer. Version 2, also known as WSL2, took things even further by introducing full Linux kernel integration. However, many users often wonder why they have to shut down WSL and start it again after restarting their PC.

The crux of the matter lies in understanding the architecture of WSL2.

WSL2 introduces a Hyper-V based virtual machine, running an optimized Linux kernel, onto your Windows system. This lightweight VM integrates smoothly with your Windows environment, allowing you to run Linux applications side-by-side with your Windows apps.

However, this seamless operation brings along an important caveat: the Linux VM remains independent of your main Windows OS.

This distinction matters when it comes to restarting or shutting down your computer. When you restart your Windows PC, it does not automatically shut down the running WSL2 sessions that were active before the restart.

Why?

• Consistency:

Generally, the aim is to maintain consistency in operating system behavior. The idea is not to disrupt any running process abruptly, but rather to keep them suspended in their current state. From a user’s perspective, if you had essential tasks running in your WSL2, you might not appreciate having them terminated without notice.

• Efficiency:

By letting the subsystem stay awake, Windows avoids unnecessary time-costly starts and stops. It keeps the VM in a suspended state, conserving resources while remaining ready for immediate use post-restart.

So the need to manually shut down the WSL contributes more towards efficient operation of your computer and avoiding abrupt termination of critical processes.

Now, how do you shutdown WSL2?

The `wsl –shutdown` command comes handy. You can use the Windows Command Prompt or PowerShell to issue this command. Here’s an example:

wsl --shutdown

This will completely shut down the WSL2 virtual machine, clearing away any Linux processes that were previously running and freeing up the system resources.

Remember, if you are looking to restart your WSL2 session after a computer restart, shutting down the WSL2 VM then starting it again may be necessary. Alternatively, you could just do a full reboot of your Windows system.

References:
Microsoft Official Documentation – WSL
TekRevue: How to Shutdown WSL2

Here’s a glimpse at a simple process to stop WSL2:

1. Open CMD or PowerShell
2. Run command: wsl --shutdown
3. Verify shutdown: wsl --list --verbose
4. Start required WSL2 instance 

After following the above steps, one should be perfectly able to get started with the newly refreshed WSL2 instance.

Understanding the Behavior of Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) after PC Restart

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 2) offers an innovative way to run a Linux environment, including most command-line tools, utilities, and applications, directly on Windows. However, many users have observed that they need to shut down WSL 2 manually to be able to restart it after their PC has been restarted.

Why is this happening?

While the exact reason behind this behavior can vary depending on your system configuration, there are two primary causes:

• WSL 2 runs as a virtual machine (VM), and by default, only suspends its operations when the host machine (your PC) is restarted.
• The IP addresses in WSL 2 may not match with those from the host machine. The localhost or local loopback address, known as “127.0.0.1”, can sometimes mess up when networking between Windows and WSL 2.

How Do I Stop This from Happening?

You can adopt a few strategies here to resolve the issue of restarting WSL 2 after every PC reboot:

Method 1: Set WSL 2 to Shutdown during PC Restart

The first solution entails ensuring that WSL 2 completely shuts down when the host computer is restarted. Then, every time the PC boots up, WSL starts anew. To execute this, you’ll require a shutdown script configured in Windows Task Scheduler.

Here is a guide on how to implement this:

1. Type ‘Task Scheduler’ into the Windows search bar and open the application.
2. In the Actions pane, click ‘Create Basic Task.’
3. Enter a name and description for the task and proceed to the ‘Triggers’ tab.
4. Select ‘On an event’ from the dropdown menu, ensuring the task begins during a system event.
5. In the settings, select ‘Custom’, and then click ‘New Event Filter.’ Select ‘System’ for the event logs, ‘Kernel-Power’ as the source, and ‘Event ID’ as 107, indicating a system shutdown.
6. Proceed onwards until you reach the ‘Action’ tab. Click ‘Start a program’ and insert

   wsl --shutdown

   in the script box, which ensures that WSL is adequately closed.

7. Complete the wizard setup. Make sure to test the task to ensure WSL shuts down appropriately during system shutdown.

Method 2: Correct Network Connectivity Issues

Another potential solution involves addressing any network connectivity issues, particularly the misalignment in IP addresses:

1. First, establish which networks WSL is using by running

   cat /etc/resolv.conf

   .

2. If “nameserver 127.0.0.53” appears, it means WSL is using systemd’s internal stub resolver. You can change this by commenting out this line and adding nameservers pointing to Google’s DNS or to Cloudflare, like so:

   #nameserver 127.0.0.53
   nameserver 8.8.8.8
   nameserver 8.8.4.4
   

3. Rerun the code to confirm everything looks correct, then restart WSL.

By deploying these simple but effective solutions, your WSL 2 shutdown and restart experience should become smoother and more efficient.

For more information on configuring and using WSL 2, don’t hesitate to visit the official Microsoft documentation.The Importance of Shutting Down WSL2 Before Restarting PC

WSL2 is a fantastic addition to the Windows 10 development suite that has offered unique benefits and essential tools for developers. Yet, one particular quirk often puzzles users – which is the need to shut down WSL2 before restarting the computer system. This particular requirement can attribute its root causes to the way WSL2 operates.

Understanding The Architecture Of WSL2

It’s crucial to understand that in contrast to its predecessor, WSL2 runs in a lightweight utility virtual machine (VM). Therefore, it doesn’t merely run as another process in your Windows operating system. Instead, it exists within its integral VM setting source.

WSL2 And Hyper-V

This smaller VM used by WSL2 actually leverages Hyper-V features contained in the Windows OS. The use of these characteristics allow WSL2 to perform faster filesystem I/O operations and offer complete Linux kernel compatibility. However, this also implies that any instances running in WSL2 utilise resources like the RAM through a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) file. This essentially becomes the primary disk, on which your Linux distro resides source.

Why Shut Down WSL2 Before System Restart?

So, why do you need to shut down WSL2 before restarting your PC? Fundamentally, it ties back to the management of the VHD, which houses the Linux distributions. It’s important to note that every time a new terminal window that triggers WSL2 is opened, or a new process related to WSL2 is initiated, the Linux kernel begins its operation with its allocated RAM pumped up to the maximum available limit source.

However, once you close your WSL2 terminals or stop using it, contrary to what you might expect, it does not immediately relinquish the resources it had claimed. This period might extend to a few minutes, and during this interval, the resource allocation could remain at an unnecessarily high level. If during this phase, you decide to restart your PC without shutting down WSL2 explicitly, it may lead to potential issues like:

• Arbitrary increase in boot times.
• Increased RAM usage upon restart.
• Clogged system resources when they might be needed elsewhere.

When this happens, it might seem as if WSL2 is consuming substantial resources even when it’s idle and not in use. So, it’s always more preferable to ensure you’ve terminated all WSL2 distributions before restarting or shutting down the computer.

For this, you can utilise the command prompt with the following code:

wsl --shutdown

In essence, the explicit shutdown action ensures proper resource allocation management for your computer and keeps the system’s overall operation smooth and efficient.Now, let’s delve into the technical details of why you need to shut down Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) before you reboot your PC.

Virtualization and Persistent State

Understanding the reason behind this requirement demands a basic understanding of what WSL2 actually is- fundamentally, WSL2 works on virtualization.

Virtualization allows creating ‘virtual’ machines within your physical machine. It provides an environment isolated from the main operating system.

In essence, WSL2 is a brand new version of Windows Subsystem for Linux that leverages Hyper-V features and Linux kernel capabilities built right into Windows 10.

The key difference between WSL1 and WSL2 rests in their approaches to running Linux binaries. WSL1 uses a translation layer that interprets Linux system calls into Windows system calls. On the contrary, WSL2 employs a lightweight utility VM on a real Linux kernel to perform these tasks. (source)

This change in architecture has its own consequences. Primarily, it means that WSL2 operates independently of the host, makes use of its own kernel, and maintains its own persistent state across reboots—in other words, if you installed something in your WSL2 environment before shutting down your PC, the same application will still be there when you power it back on.

The Need for Shutting Down

Hence as a best practice, you should really always shutdown WSL2 using

wsl --shutdown

before you restart or shut down your PC.

Just to give you a clearer picture, it’s similar to having a virtual instance running. When you restart your PC, all of the saved applications, programs, services running inside of the OS will also restart, but the virtual machine won’t.

Therefore, in order to ensure that any changes within WSL2 are properly reflected upon restart, it’s important to terminate it.

Another thing to consider is memory usage. If you have several instances of WSL2 running, they will hoard resources, even after you’ve closed all bash windows. This continues to eat up your computer’s memory. A comprehensive shutdown of WSL before restarting would hence make absolute sense.

A Code-based Solution

To avoid manually doing this every time, you can use a pre-shutdown script:

Register-ShutdownEvent -ScriptBlock {wsl --shutdown}

This script automates the process of shutting down WSL2 anytime you restart your machine.

Now you must have garnered a fair idea how WSL2 works and why shutting it down before restarting ensures optimal performance and prevents any unintended issues.

A deeper dive into this phenomenon and ways to counteract it can be found here.

Bear in mind, WSL2 is continually being improved and more automated solutions might surface in future updates, granting us ease of usage while working with this powerful tool.
Docker and WLS2 are interrelated as Docker Desktop for Windows uses the WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux 2) backend. When it comes to restarting your PC, there’s an important aspect you need to understand about how Docker and WSL2 behave.

When you restart your PC, some processes do not stop as expected; these could be docker or WSL processes that continue running in the background. Consequentially, upon startup, the system is unable to initiate what it perceives are already active processes. This causes conflicts, especially when there exist processes from previous Docker or WSL instances. Hence, to circumvent this issue, you have to manually shutdown WSL.

You can accomplish this by using the following command on your terminal:

wsl --shutdown

This effectively shuts down all WSL distributions and ends the overall utility VM (virtual machine). However, remember, shutting down WSL also terminates any Docker-related processes since Docker relies on WSL on Windows.

Why is it specifically needed to shutdown WSL before the PC restart?

* It helps close all potential residual sessions that might obstruct new ones after a restart.
* It guarantees that all backend services (like Docker) reliant on WSL are well terminated, hence ensuring a clean restart procedure, devoid of conflicts.

The concept here is broadly linked to another technology topic known as Process Lifetime Management . In simpler terms, it is how operating systems manage the life cycles of all running processes – precisely when a process should start and terminate. Consequently, failing to properly shutdown a process such as WSL could result in malfunctions or conflicts with upcoming fresh instances of the same process post-restart.

Regarding process management with Docker specifically, the Docker Engine follows a very defined guideline:

* Docker has an internal garbage collector that cleans up unused containers, networks, and images.
* If a Docker run does not receive a system ordeal to stop, it will persist indefinitely, even after rebooting. The garbage collector cannot eliminate this unless explicitly told to do so.

So, remember to shut down WSL manually before restarting your PC to ensure your Docker and WSL implementations can start afresh and function smoothly once you power back on.

If you want more details about managing Docker and WSL’s lifecycle during system reboot or shutdown, Microsoft’s official documents on WSL and Docker’s documents on Docker container restart policies offer comprehensive information.
Shutting down your Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) instance correctly serves multiple benefits, such as freeing up resources, ensuring the proper ending of server processes and maintains dedicated filesystem integrity. This is especially relevant when you’ve to reboot your local machine or implemented significant changes in your WSL setup.

The shutdown process in the WSL involves three steps:

- Saving work and closing any open applications.
- Entering shutdown command in the terminal 
- Verifying the shutdown process.

Let’s dive a little deeper into each step:

Saving Work and Closing Applications:

As a rule of thumb, always save your work and close applications before you start the shutdown process. Preserving essential tasks will prevent potential data loss and mistakes made due to rushing.

Entering Shutdown Command:

To shut down the WSL2 instance, you can run one straightforward Terminal command:

wsl --shutdown

This “wsl –shutdown” command halts all running distributions and the WSL 2 lightweight utility virtual machine.

Verifying the Shutdown process:

Finally, it’s best to verify that your WSL is indeed shut down. Run the subsequent command in powershell:

wsl --list --verbose

It should display “Stopped” by the side of your distro thereby confirming the successful conclusion of shutdown. If not, you may have to repeat the process.

Now, let’s address the question: Why do I have to shutdown WSL to restart WSL after restarting PC?

The quick answer is because of how WSL2 uses a lightweight utility Virtual Machine (VM). When you restart your computer, this VM persists which means that your WSL distribution remains active even post system reboot. If there was an issue with your system causing you to restart, then that issue likely persisted in your WSL2 instance.

By shutting down the WSL instance manually before system restart, we ensure that all system resources linked with WSL are also rebooted. It helps preserve integrity of your WSL operations as residual processes or pending updates are less likely to harm your future workings.

To sum up these two broad aspects,
– Correctly shutting down WSL contributes reliability and smooth operation to your workflows
– The need to shutdown WSL prior to a systemic restart ensures safety from potential disruptive elements carrying over through reboots.

References:
WSL2 Documentation (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/)

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) is a powerful tool that allows you to run a Linux environment directly on Windows without the overhead of a traditional virtual machine or dual boot setup. However, it’s not perfect and not properly shutting down WSL2 can cause some potential issues with its performance, consistency, and data integrity.

Potential Problems

Closing WSL2 typically helps to free up resources on your system, like disk space used by WSL2’s Virtual Hard Disk (VHD). But, if you don’t correctly shut down WSL2 and instead immediately restart your computer, the following problems may arise:

• Data loss : If any processes are still writing to the disk when you restart WSL2, you could potentially lose that data. This is because these processes don’t have time to finish before WSL2 shuts down.
• Performance issues : Not properly closing WSL2 can lead to additional disk utilization and potential performance degradation. Your system may slow as it attempts to manage unallocated resources.
• Start-up error or delay : WSL2 might either fail to start-up or start slowly after rebooting your PC, due to improper termination of running processes or services within the previous instance of WSL2.

Why do I have to shut down WSL to restart WSL after restarting PC?

A proper shutdown process is important to clear out resources and close processes in an orderly manner, ensuring they’re properly ready for re-use upon restarting your PC. Without this, it might lead to problems as described above.
So, When you restart your system, the Linux kernel – which is what powers your WSL2 instance also, doesn’t actually come to a complete stop during a regular restart process. It goes into a “hibernation” mode to help speed up the subsequent restart.

Here’s a basic overview of the shutdown command:

wsl --shutdown

This command stops the WSL2 VM entirely, freeing up system resources.
Keep in mind: This will terminate all distributions currently running, meaning active sessions or processes within those instances will be stopped as well.

You can find more details about WSL2 and its commands in the official documentation.

Mitigating the Problems

To prevent such issues, it is advisable to follow the below practices:

• Before a restart, manually perform a clean shutdown of your WSL2 instance using the ‘wsl –shutdown’ command.
• Schedule regular data backups to minimise potential data loss.
• Continually monitor your system’s performance and resource usage to check for potential issues.

In this way, exploring the potential problems caused by not properly shutting down WSL2 makes us realize the importance of correct process handling measures to maintain the performance and integrity of our systems.The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has become a popular development environment, especially among developers running Windows 10. WSL 2, the second iteration of this application, introduced a great number of improvements from its predecessor. However, it brought with it some nuances that aren’t as readily apparent, one of which concerns the restarting of the PC without shutting down the WSL instance.

Understanding the Workspace Impact: Not Closing WSL Before System Reboot essentially involves grasping the construct of this machine-level virtualization technology^{[1](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/about)}.

# To shutdown a WSL instance:
wsl --shutdown

WSL 2 runs in a lightweight utility Virtual Machine (VM)^{[2](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/announcing-wsl-2/)}. When you reboot your system without closing your WSL instances, they persist and continue to reside in memory and consume resources. Let’s break it down:

– Consuming System Resources: If there are several WSL instances running concurrently, they can substantially consume system resources such as RAM and CPU power. This could lead to overall performance degradation of your system^{[3](https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/hyqut4/if_i_restart_my_pc_do_i_need_to_run_wsl_shutdown/)}.

– Potential Data Loss: While Windows and WSL have a certain level of interaction, they possess individual system states. The Linux VM doesn’t necessarily sync with the Windows host during a restart, so any unsaved state in the WSL may not survive the reboot process – potentially causing data loss^{[4](https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4699)}.

– Hibernation Incompatibility: The VM that runs WSL 2 is incompatible with hibernation. Hence, if your system enters hibernation, WSL 2 may not properly resume afterwards^{[5](https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/5068)}.

To emphatically shed light on why we need to run

wsl --shutdown

, consider what this command does. Executing it will cleanly shut down all running WSL 2 distributions and terminate the VM. This ensures both resource preservation and data safety^{[6](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62122479/shutting-down-wsl2-cleanly/64247716#64247716)}.

Alterations in the Windows OS don’t universally enforce changes in the Linux VM. Restarting the Computer won’t effectively ‘restart’ all running WSL instances. Therefore, explicitly executing

See also

Linux

Resource Not Accessible By Integration On Github Post Registration-Token Api

wsl --shutdown

is highly recommended before a system reboot.

Having discussed the impacts, resolving these issues is straightforward. Windows users familiar with Bash scripts can write one to automate the process, ensuring both the conservation of precious system resources and mitigating chances of potential data losses.

For instance, creating a script (let’s name it wslShutDown.sh) containing the code snippet below would suffice:

  
#!/bin/bash
echo "Shutting down all WSL instances..."
wsl --shutdown

In conclusion, going forward, always remember to close your WSL instances before initiating a system reboot. While shutting down may seem like an additional step in your workflow, maintaining this practice will payoff by offering higher system stability, eliminating unnecessary resource consumption, and helping prevent sudden data loss during unexpected system reboots.It’s worth acknowledging how the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) works to fully understand why you have to shutdown WSL2 before restarting it, especially after just restarting your PC.

Notably, when your WSL distribution is started, it isn’t running in a traditional virtual machine. It instead utilizes a lightweight utility virtual machine that differs from a full-fledged VM which would use something like Hyper-V. That means it’s not completely sandboxed and separated as much as a normal virtual machine. This is what brings about efficient performance, but also results in our particular situation where you need to shut it down properly before starting again.

The command

wsl --shutdown

shuts down all WSL distributions, and stops the WSL2 lightweight utility VM. Not shutting down the WSL2 VM properly will result in it resuming its last state when brought back up – essentially functioning like putting a real computer on sleep, then waking it up. Now, if you restart your PC without shutting it down first, the next time you start your distribution, instead of it booting up from scratch, it might just resume its previous state, hence any changes that needed a full reboot may not take effect.

Moreover, once a WSL2 machine is running, it maintains network services that aren’t closed even when you close the terminal or exit the shell. So, to reset these services, a proper shutdown is required.

The procedure can be pictured like this:

wsl --shutdown

In short, executing commands for adequate closure of the subsystem – expressly WSL2 – ensures a clean state for the utility VM at every boot, providing stable and expected operations.

Make sure to always execute

wsl --shutdown

to properly shutdown the lightweight VM before a restart for smooth operation of your WSL2 after the PC restarts.

For more info, Microsoft’s documentation on WSL2 provides further insights.Indeed, you are not alone in experiencing the predicament where you have to shut down Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) to restart it after rebooting your PC. With a broad comprehension in coding and systems administration, I can share that this issue is due to some fundamental aspects related to how WSL2 operates and its interaction with the host operating system.

Underlying Cause
Primarily, we need to understand that WSL2 runs in a lightweight utility virtual machine(VM). Different from a PC which you power off completely when you restart it, WSL2’s VM only suspends itself when Windows shuts down or restarts. Therefore, the Linux kernel and processes inside this VM continue persisting. This persistence often causes issues if you make changes that require a fresh state, such as installing new Linux packages, doing system updates, or configuring network settings.

Solving the Challenge
Considering the complexity of the situation, the key to addressing it lies in ensuring that the lightweight VM running WSL2 shuts down completely together with Windows. Here is a simple workaround using the command line:

wsl --shutdown

This code forces all distributions to terminate, and the lightweight VM running WSL2 to shut down.

Automating the process
To ease the process, you might desire to automate this procedure so that WSL2 always shuts down when Windows does. Unfortunately, there’s no direct configurable setting in WSL2 or Windows that allows this. But with a combination of batch scripting and Task Scheduler, you can readily achieve this. You create a script that calls

wsl --shutdown

, then set up a task in Task Scheduler that executes this script whenever Windows shuts down or restarts.

Taken into account the extent of configuration and practices, it’s viable to address the situation where you have to shutdown WSL2 before you can restart it after a PC restart. As shown, this inherent behavior emanates from the operational aspects of WSL2 and its interaction with Windows.

For more details on WSL2 shutting down or suspending, you may refer to the official Windows WSL2 documentation. Furthermore, for creating and scheduling tasks, you may want to take a look at Microsoft’s documentation on Task Scheduler. It provides extensive guidance on how to automate common administrative tasks on your computer, therefore, potentially easing your WSL2 experience.
Understanding the user experience complexities in the bootup process after PC restarts can take into account one distinct issue prominent in Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) environments: having to manually shut down WSL2 before a restart. This isn’t well-understood by many, and it does raise considerable UX challenges. So let’s dissect it.

To start with, we need to understand that

wsl --shutdown

is a command-line instruction that manually shuts down all WSL2 distributions and the WSL2 lightweight utility virtual machine. In normal circumstances, this operation shouldn’t be necessary because a full system shutdown or restart would ideally do this job. However, due to how WSL2 operates, there are unique cases where preemptively stopping WSL2 could help improve the system’s performance after a restart.

Here are some of the reasons why you might need to shut down WSL2 manually:

• Persistence: WSL2 implements a full Linux kernel and stores its state on disk for use across individual sessions. Because of this persistent nature, some processes may be left running even after you restart your computer.
• Virtual Machine LifeCycle Management: While WSL2 operates more like software than a VM, it does employ Virtual Machine Platform to handle certain aspects, including lifecycle management. Calling

  wsh --shutdown

  ensures these elements are properly stopped and restarted cleanly.

• Resource Allocation: WSL2 has been known to hold onto memory even when it’s not in use. By shutting it down explicitly, you free up those resources for your system to use post-restart.

The process of executing this stopgap solution is straightforward—an aforementioned

wsl --shutdown

command will suffice.

 
C:\Users\Username>wsl --shutdown

This gets us to think about possible solutions that could potentially address the concerns without manual interference each time.

Optimally, one could employ a piece of script that executes the

wsl --shutdown

upon every PC restart. Essentially, you’d code a batch file and place it in the Windows startup folder, prompting an automatic run during every system boot. Here is a simple example:

 
@echo off
wsl --shutdown
exit

You save this as a .bat file and put in your Startup’s folder. Next time you boot up, this will automatically run, shutting down WSL2 straightaway.

Admittedly it’s merely a band-aid than any real, sustainable solution, but until there are changes made at the heart of WSL2’s handling procedures, tweakers and tinkerers out there will reach for what they can to smoothen out their user experiences.

For further reading, [Microsoft’s own documentation](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/) on WSL provides deeper insights into the intricacies involved and potential workarounds through programmatically managing these instances.

Firstly, let’s dissect the entire process of shutting down Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on a computer running both Windows and WSL. It may sound insubstantial but it does come with its own set of implications that have a corresponding impact on your overall work flow and usage of the system.

Effect of not shutting down WSL before restarting PC

If you merely restart your PC without shutting down WSL, it’ll cause the WSL2 VM to go into a saved state. Applications on your Ubuntu (or any other distribution running on WSL) are frozen in their current state. After your PC starts up again, these applications will resume from exactly where they left off. This can lead to some potential drawbacks such as:

• Any unsaved changes in the running apps might get lost if not properly committed before the restart.
• If an application was holding onto system resources at the time of restart, those resources remain locked until that specific application releases them or until WSL is manually restarted.
• In cases where high-memory consuming processes were running, restarting the PC without shutting down WSL will still hold the consumed memory on the task manager even though the PC was supposed to get a fresh start.

The Right Way: Shutting Down WSL before restarting PC

To avoid the above-mentioned issues and give Windows the opportunity to ‘clean’ your device more effectively when restarting, it’s advised to shut down WSL first. This can be effectively done via the command line interface using the command:

wsl --shutdown

This ensures that:

• All running distributions and the WSL 2 lightweight utility virtual machine are cleanly shutdown.
• It releases all resources utilized by WSL distributions, providing a clean slate for your following operations.
• The risk of data loss from unsaved changes gets nullified since you intentionally are closing all applications.

Effect on overall use of a Laptop/Computer running Windows alongside WSL

Closing WSL before every restart is a good habit. While it seems like extra work, it provides advantages:

• It maintains the integrity of data in applications running in WSL.
• Frees up locked system resources improving overall system performance.
• Eliminates the possibility of ‘ghost’ resource consumption appearing on Task Manager post the system restart.

In essence, if you prioritize system efficiency and aim to safeguard your data while working with WSL in a Windows operating environment, shutting down WSL before restarting your PC should be made an integral part of your workflow.(source)

Understanding the intricacies of WSL2 is vital for its optimal functioning. Typical restarts such as simply rebooting your PC do not clear the WSL so you have to perform additional steps of either shutting down or restarting your WSL in order for it to start afresh. The virtual machine used by WSL2 runs independently of the host OS system and maintains its state across system reboots.

These functionalities make WSL2 incredibly flexible, but they also necessitate a slightly different approach when considering activities like system startup and shutdown. Functions such as

wsl --shutdown

or

wsl --terminate <Distro>

are often necessary to properly clean up resources or unload the WSL2 kernel, creating a fresh environment for Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 operations upon restart.

Part of what makes WSL2 unique, however, is its incorporation of a Microsoft-written Linux kernel, which contributes to its operational independence. For example, if you’ve opened a Linux app and haven’t manually terminated it before shutting down your computer, it will remain open even after a reboot (unlike native Windows applications). As long as the VM has the capability to perform this management, it can reside in memory and continue running processes without any user input.

Table showing difference between normal Shutdown and WSL Restart/Shutdown

Harnessing the full potential of WSL2 involves adapting to its distinct features and understanding when it’s beneficial to use commands like

wsl --shutdown

. Remember, navigating WSL2 requires specific approaches best suited to its unique architecture, leading to best practices that may be markedly different from those familiar to traditional Windows users.

For those curious about further techniques and insights regarding WSL2, several resources are available online, everything from basic tutorials to more advanced topics that delve into detail about the subtle complexities involved with using Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 effectively. With dedication and some time invested, mastery of this resource-rich tool can significantly enhance any coder’s productivity levels.

Source