Summary

  • Microsoft officially releases a memory management feature for WSL, addressing memory consumption issues.
  • Automatic memory release to Windows and improved network capability aim to enhance user experience on Windows 11 machines.
  • Future plans include a GUI menu for the Settings page and adding WSL to Dev Home's Environments feature.

Back in September 2023, Microsoft announced that it was introducing new experimental memory management tools with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Since then, things have been a little quiet, with Microsoft not making any big announcements about the feature. Now, the company is finally ready to release its memory management feature into the wild, and you can get started with it right away.

👁 Screenshot of the Files app on Windows 11 with a green theme and a photo in the background
Files review: A more modern alternative to the Windows 11 File Explorer

The Files app is what I want the Windows 11 File Explorer to look like, but it's not quite perfect. It's also limited by Windows in some ways.

Windows Subsystem for Linux's memory tweaks come out of experimental status

As announced on the Windows Command Line blog, the memory features that were once in testing status are now enabled by default. It also contains a nice update to WSL's networking, which should improve compatibility:

  • Automatically release stored memory in WSL back to Windows
    • Default autoMemoryReclaim=dropCache
    • Address issues like GH#8725
  • Improve networking capability
    • Default dnsTunneling=true on Windows 11 machines
    • Address issues like GH#5068 GH#5336

The memory tweak should help people who have previously had issues with WSL eating up their VM's memory. The example issue that Microsoft gives is a case where the WSL2+ Docket was causing the Vmmem process to devour 5.5GB of memory by itself. If you've been plagued by similar headaches, now would be a fantastic time to update.

The blog post also takes some time to cover some upcoming features for WSL. Microsoft is working on a GUI menu for the Settings page, which should make tweaking WSL a lot easier when it is released. Plus, there are plans to add WSL to Dev Home's new Environments feature. Neither of these features has a release date yet, but Microsoft does state that anyone interested should keep their eyes peeled for any developments on the matter. In the meantime, why not give your WSL distro a backup so you don't lose anything important?