It is no secret that those of Redmond give a greater importance to the Microsoft Store after the launch of Windows 11. The store is an ideal place to undock elements of the operating system, as we already saw with the experience packages and with the voice packages. The objective is to gain faster development and deployment speeds, as well as to lighten the base weight of the operating system.
Now, Microsoft seeks to replicate this operation for one of the most important components of Windows 10 and Windows 11: the Linux Subsystem for Windows (also known as WSL). WSL is currently installed as a Windows component, but will move to the Microsoft Store in the future.
WSL comes to the Microsoft Store as a Preview
Microsoft has started testing this migration, Releasing a Preview of the Linux Subsystem on the Windows 11 Microsoft Store. It is not a new version, but the same component decoupled from the operating system and packaged as an application, so that it can be distributed through the store.
This change has two advantages. The first one is that allows the WSL development team to release updates more frequently. Currently, the Linux Subsystem is part of the operating system and can only be updated each time the operating system is updated.
The second advantage is precisely that we will not have to worry about the version of the operating system that we are executing. Therefore, when installing the WSL distros we will not have to be aware of checking the compatibility with the Windows 11 version and, simply, we will have to update the app from the Microsoft Store.
However, this change only affects WSL 2 distros. The Linux Subsystem component for Windows will have to be enabled in any case for WSL 1. As a consequence, in future versions of Windows 11, the component will no longer be coupled to the system. operational, lightening the weight of the installation.