Installing WSL Goes From a Multi-Step Process to One Command

The single-command wsl --install setup, which collapsed a previously multi-step WSL installation process into one command, became available on Windows 10 version 2004 and higher through the KB5004296 update, announced around July 30, 2021.

What installing WSL required before this

Setting up WSL previously meant separately enabling the “Windows Subsystem for Linux” optional feature, enabling the “Virtual Machine Platform” feature for WSL2 specifically, manually downloading and installing a Linux kernel update package, setting WSL2 as the default version, and finally installing a distro — five-plus distinct manual steps, each a potential point of confusion for a new user.

The specific update that shipped it

The command arrived through KB5004296, a cumulative update for Windows 10 version 2004 and later, announced around July 30, 2021 — meaning the feature reached existing Windows 10 installations through ordinary Windows Update, without requiring a full feature-update-level upgrade to get access to the simplified installation path.

What the single command actually does

wsl --install

Run from an administrator PowerShell or Command Prompt, this one command handles enabling the necessary Windows features, installing the Linux kernel component, setting WSL2 as default, and installing Ubuntu as a default distro — collapsing what had been a multi-step, easy-to-get-wrong process into a single, reliable command.

Why this mattered for WSL’s broader adoption

A multi-step manual setup process, however well documented, is a real barrier for less experienced users specifically — collapsing it into a single, well-tested command significantly lowered the practical barrier to trying WSL at all, particularly for developers newer to Linux tooling who might have been discouraged by the earlier, more involved setup sequence.

How this fit into WSL’s broader simplification trend

This simplification came alongside WSL’s later move to standalone Microsoft Store distribution, part of a consistent multi-year trend of Microsoft reducing WSL’s setup and maintenance friction — from a developer-preview feature requiring Developer Mode and manual configuration, toward something closer to installing any other application.

Choosing a non-default distro from the same simplified command

The single-command install wasn’t limited to only installing Ubuntu as the sole option — wsl --install -d <DistroName>, using a distro name from the list returned by wsl --list --online, installs any of Microsoft’s other supported distro images through the same simplified command, meaning the convenience gain applied broadly rather than only benefiting users happy with the Ubuntu default specifically.

Why documentation and community tutorials needed a rewrite after this

A meaningful, if less visible, consequence of this change was that years of existing WSL setup tutorials, blog posts, and internal company documentation describing the older multi-step process became outdated essentially overnight — anyone following an older guide unaware of the simplified command would still work, but through unnecessarily manual steps a newer, simpler path had already superseded, a common pattern whenever a platform significantly simplifies a previously multi-step onboarding process.

The command continues to serve as the officially documented starting point for any new WSL installation today, having outlived the specific KB update that originally introduced it as Windows and WSL themselves continued to evolve independently in the years since.

The feature reached Insiders before it reached everyone else

Automatic distro installation as part of wsl --install wasn’t new with the July 2021 KB — it first appeared for Windows Insiders in preview build 20246, giving Microsoft a real-world testing window across Dev and Beta channel users before folding the same behavior into the broadly distributed KB5004296 update. Insider preview first, general Windows Update rollout second, was the same staged pattern Microsoft used for most other significant WSL platform changes during this period.

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