WSL2 Stopped Working: 4 Easy Ways to Make It Work Again

Restart LxssManager service or turn on Hardware Virtualization

4 min. read

Updated onOctober 4, 2023

updated onOctober 4, 2023

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When running a Linux virtual machine on your Windows PC, you may come across issues such as the WSL2 stopped working, which has been troubling other users.

In this guide, we will discuss what is WSL and what it does in actual terms. Moreover, we will give you a few solutions that will help you resolve the problem on your end. Let us get right into it.

What is WSL or Windows Subsystem for Linux?

WSL or theWindows Subsystem for Linuxlets users run Linux OS directly on their Windows PC. The best part of using WSL is that it lets you run complete Linux inside Windows, allowing you to use the same files and apps seamlessly.

WSL2 makes use of the Hyper-V virtual machine technology. This boosts the performance of using Linux on Windows OS as the compatibility is improved and the file access speed is up to 20x faster than WSL1.

Microsoft introduced WSL2 in 2020, so it iscompatible with the latest version of Windows, i.e., the Windows 11 OS. However, if you are using Windows 10, then you need to manually configure it for better performance.

While you will get almost similar performance on Windows 10, as per user reports, WSL2 performs well and is stable on Windows 11.

What can I do if WSL2 stopped working?

1. Set the LxssManager service startup to Automatic

Following the above steps will set LxssManager to auto-start. We would advise you to only tweak registry settings if you know what you are doing, as incorrect tweaks can lead to system failure and important services getting disabled.

2. Restart LxssManager Service

Often the LxxManager service can come across an issue that could result in its malfunction. In such a case, we would advise you to restart the service back again by following the above steps and check if this fixes the WSL2 issue.

3. Uninstall Windows update

We have shown the steps to uninstall updates for Windows 11 OS, but the steps are similar for Windows 10 as well.

Chances are the version of Windows update that you are running has some bugs which are causing the WSL2 stopped working problem. You can uninstall the update and check if this fixes the problem or not.

4. Enable Hardware Virtualization

Now follow the below steps depending on the brand of laptop you have.

We have shown the steps to enable Hardware Virtualization for Acer and Dell laptops. But you can check out thisofficial Microsoft support pageto know how to enable the settings for other brands.

That is it from us in this guide. Readers can also check out our guide to know how they canfix the Windows 10/11 bootloader from Linux.

Readers who want to know how they can create a bootableUSB media for Linux OScan refer to our dedicated guide.

Let us know in the comments below, which one of the above solutions helped resolve the problem at your end.

WSL2 Stopped Working: 4 Easy Ways to Make It Work Again#

What is WSL or Windows Subsystem for Linux?#

What can I do if WSL2 stopped working?#

1. Set the LxssManager service startup to Automatic#

2. Restart LxssManager Service#

3. Uninstall Windows update#

4. Enable Hardware Virtualization#