Two significant updates to the Windows Subsystem for Linux have been announced by Microsoft. The Microsoft Store app is now the default version for Windows 10 and Windows 11 and no longer bears the mark of a preview version.
With this change, Microsoft will no longer offer WSL as a separate, optional component of Windows. As a result of community requests, the company claims to have uploaded the app to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users, meaning “you can now run Linux GUI apps on Windows 10”.
The Windows Subsystem for Linux is now an application rather than a Windows component, but it must be enabled to use the optional virtual machine platform. the app is now the default version, but you can still visit the release page on GitHub to see the latest WSL build and install it manually.
The information is contained in a blog post by Windows Developer Platform Program Manager Craig Loewen. He claims:
As of the most recent update, Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is no longer marked as “preview” in the Microsoft Store. To simplify upgrading for current users, we are also making the store version of WSL the default for new users who run wsl —install. You can download WSL updates considerably faster with the store version than with the Windows components.