Microsoft Rolls Out WSL Containers to Make Windows a Linux-Friendly Platform

Microsoft has introduced WSL Containers, a new feature for its Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that allows developers to easily build, run, and deploy Linux containers on Windows. This move is part of Microsoft's effort to make Windows the best place to run Linux workloads, according to Logan Iyer, corporate vice-president for the Windows platform and developer at Microsoft.

The WSL Containers feature provides a built-in container management system that allows Windows Subsystem for Linux to manage containers itself. This means developers can use a command-line interface to easily build, run, and deploy Linux containers on Windows, without needing to rely on external tools like Docker.

A key aspect of the new architecture is the separation of responsibilities between WSL service and user sessions. The WSL service creates virtual machines via Hyper-V Containers (HCS) and uses them to run Linux workloads, while user sessions handle container operations in a less privileged process than the WSL service.

The WSL Containers feature is now available in all new WSL installations and can be added to existing installations using the command `wsl --update`. For more information, developers can refer to Pierre Boulay's technical overview on GitHub, which includes source code under the permissive MIT license.