In a blog post, Microsoft's Brandon LeBlanc announced that after making some updates to improve WSL's performance, a change was made that allows searching lists of file types, protocols, and files.
This adds access to Linux file systems in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, allowing users to connect and mount a physical disk within a WSL 2 distribution. This enables access to file systems that are not natively supported by Windows, such as ext4.
All of this will be possible starting with the Windows Insiders 20211 preview version. WSL 2 will offer the new function: wsl –mount, which is responsible for performing this action.
The blog post mentions that to mount a disk , you need to open a PowerShell window with administrator privileges and run the following command:
wsl --mount <DiskPath>
And to list the available disks in Windows, you must run:
wmic diskdrive list brief
To unmount and disconnect the WSL 2 disk, run:
wsl --unmount <Diskpath>
The disk paths are available in the "DeviceID" columns, usually in the format \\. \\\. \ PHYSICALDRIVE *.
The following is an example of how to mount a specific partition of a given hard drive in WSL and examine its files.
Once mounted, these disks can also be accessed through Windows Explorer by going to \ wsl
By default, wsl –mount tries to mount the disk as ext4.
Currently, it is mentioned that there are certain limitations at this time , namely that only full disks can be attached to WSL 2, which means that it is not possible to attach only a partition.
Specifically, this means that you cannot use wsl –mount to read a partition on the boot device, as this device cannot be disconnected from Windows.
USB flash drives are not currently supported and will not connect to WSL 2. However, USB drives are compatible.
Only filesystems supported natively in the kernel can be mounted by wsl –mount. This means that it is not possible to use the installed filesystem drivers (like ntfs-3g, for example) called andowsl –mount.
Furthermore, the developer updates mention that whenever a new version of the operating system is released to the development channel, the corresponding Windows SDK will also be released . You can always install the latest Insider SDK from aka.ms/InsiderSDK.
Finally, regarding the corrections mentioned in the publication:
- Fixed an issue where some 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit operating system were not being promoted correctly to the discrete GPU for hybrid configurations.
- We fixed an issue that could cause the Start menu tiles to continue to show an "Application update in progress" progress bar after updating an application.
- We fixed an issue that could cause some of the app icons to appear unexpectedly on Startup.
- We fixed an issue on ARM64 devices that caused the Start menu to crash on launch the next time it was opened after launching certain applications from the Start menu and then closing them.
- We fixed an issue that could cause the lock screen to freeze.
- We fixed an issue that could cause ShellExperienceHost.exe to crash.
- We fixed an issue where the default background image for Windows 10 was not showing in notifications (for example, when taking a screenshot with WIN + Shift + S).
- We fixed an issue with the latest versions that could cause Windows Update to crash when downloading the update.
- You will no longer be prompted to reinstall a .NET update after each release.
If you want to know more about the note, you can consult the post made on the Microsoft blog by going to the following link.