How to install wsl2 offline

Manually install wsl2 when locked in Microsoft Store

Introduction

Microsoft offers running Linux in Windows using technology was WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). The new version of wsl which is called wsl2 allow to run a Microsoft customized Linux Kernel with distro of your choice. In this article, I will use Ubuntu distro.

To update to WSL 2, you must be running Windows 10.

• For x64 systems: Version 1903 or higher, with Build 18362 or higher.
• For ARM64 systems: Version 2004 or higher, with Build 19041 or higher.
• Builds lower than 18362 do not support WSL 2.

To check your version and build number, select Windows logo key + R, type winver, select OK. (Or enter the ver command in Windows Command Prompt)

Pre-requisites

The follow are required to be installed before you can run the installation of distro. It will install wsl.exe as well.

a. Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux /all /norestart

b. Enable Virtual Machine feature

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run:

dism.exe /online /enable-feature /featurename:VirtualMachinePlatform /all /norestart

c. Download and install the Linux kernel update package

Open Command Prompt or PowerShell and enter: systeminfo | find "System Type".

Download package for the system type as above

x64 — https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_x64.msi

arm64 — https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_arm64.msi

Run the update package downloaded in the previous step. (Double-click to run — you will be prompted for elevated permissions, select ‘yes’ to approve this installation.)

Download and install distro

Here I am going to download Ubuntu 20.04 distro for x64 and install it via Powershell

1. Download the distro

Invoke-WebRequest -Uri https://aka.ms/wslubuntu2004 -OutFile Ubuntu.appx -UseBasicParsing