By Mayank Parmar
Publication Date: 2026-09-30 00:40:00
Microsoft is taking Windows Subsystem for Linux beyond just running Linux distributions, as WSL Containers is now generally available.
You can get the feature by running wsl --update, and once installed, there’s a new wslc.exe command-line tool.
Microsoft also includes container.exe as an alias, so you can use more familiar container commands.
“WSL containers CLI: wslc.exe to directly build, run and deploy Linux containers on Windows, or use its built-in alias container.exe to run the same familiar container commands,” Microsoft explained.
There’s also a WSL Containers API, which allows Windows apps to programmatically launch and interact with Linux containers.
“Access functions to run Linux containers programmatically in your native Windows apps – unlocking scenarios like running local AI workloads or using cloud-based containerized applications locally,” Microsoft noted.

The general availability release adds several features that were missing during preview,…



