WSL Reaches 1.0 as a Standalone Microsoft Store App
WSL dropped its 'Preview' label in the Microsoft Store on November 22, 2022, decoupling its update cycle from Windows itself entirely — meaning WSL improvements could ship on their own schedule going forward.
On November 22, 2022, Microsoft announced that the Windows Subsystem for Linux, distributed through the Microsoft Store, had reached version 1.0 and general availability — dropping its “Preview” label and becoming available on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Why moving WSL to the Store mattered architecturally
Prior to this change, WSL’s core components were bundled into the Windows OS image itself, meaning WSL updates were tied to Windows’s own update and release cadence. Moving WSL to Microsoft Store distribution decoupled it from that cycle entirely — WSL improvements could now ship whenever they were ready, without waiting for the next major Windows feature update.
What version 1.0 specifically included
The 1.0 release bundled opt-in systemd support, the ability to run Linux GUI applications directly on Windows 10 (not just Windows 11, where WSLg had originally launched), and hundreds of smaller bug fixes and improvements accumulated through the preceding preview period.
How the Store version relates to the built-in version
Following this release, the Microsoft Store version became the default installation path for anyone running wsl --install, with existing users able to move to it via wsl --update — while a version of WSL still ships as part of the Windows OS image for compatibility, the Store version became the actively developed, recommended path going forward.
Why this represented the completion of a multi-year simplification arc
From WSL1’s original 2016 developer-preview reveal, through the single-command install introduced in 2021, to this final decoupling from Windows’s own release cycle, WSL’s distribution model consistently moved toward faster iteration and lower setup friction — this release effectively completed that particular arc, even as WSL’s underlying technical capabilities continued to expand afterward.
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