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@@ -6,10 +6,10 @@ see the [LICENSE](LICENSE) file, and grant you a license to any code in the repo
 
 Microsoft, Windows, Microsoft Azure and/or other Microsoft products and services referenced in the documentation
 may be either trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft in the United States and/or other countries.
-The licenses for this project do not grant you rights to use any Microsoft names, logos, or trademarks.
-Microsoft's general trademark guidelines can be found at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=254653.
+The licenses for this project do not grant you rights to use any Microsoft names, logos, or trademarks. You can find Microsoft general trademark guidelines at 
+[Microsoft Trademark and Brand Guidelines](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/legal/intellectualproperty/trademarks).
 
-Privacy information can be found at https://privacy.microsoft.com/
+For privacy information, see [privacy at Microsoft](https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/).
 
 Microsoft and any contributors reserve all others rights, whether under their respective copyrights, patents,
-or trademarks, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise.
+or trademarks, whether by implication, estoppel or otherwise.
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 title: What is Windows Subsystem for Linux 
 description: Learn about the Windows Subsystem for Linux, including the different versions and ways you can use them. Microsoft Loves Linux.
-ms.date: 11/20/2023
+ms.date: 05/19/2025
 ms.topic: article
 ---
 
@@ -23,6 +23,14 @@ Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is a feature of Windows that allows you to run
 - [Run GNU/Linux graphical applications](./tutorials/gui-apps.md) integrated directly to your Windows desktop
 - Use your device [GPU to accelerate Machine Learning workloads running on Linux.](./tutorials/gpu-compute.md)
 
+WSL is an Open Source tool with source code available for download and contributions:
+
+- [Learn more about WSL open source components](opensource.md)
+- WSL Open Source docs site: [wsl.dev](https://wsl.dev)
+- WSL repository on GitHub: [github.com/Microsoft/wsl](https://github.com/microsoft/WSL)
+
+Get started using WSL:
+
 > [!div class="nextstepaction"]
 > [Install WSL](install.md)
 
 
@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ wsl --set-default <Distribution Name>
 
 To set the default Linux distribution that WSL commands will use to run, replace `<Distribution Name>` with the name of your preferred Linux distribution.
 
-## Change directory to home
+## Start WSL in user's home
 
 ```powershell
 wsl ~
 
@@ -2,8 +2,7 @@
 title: Windows Subsystem for Linux Documentation
 description: Overview of the Windows Subsystem for Linux documentation.
 ms.topic: overview
-ms.date: 12/06/2021
-ms.custom: seo-windows-dev
+ms.date: 05/19/2025
 ---
 
 # Windows Subsystem for Linux Documentation
@@ -16,10 +15,13 @@ Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) lets developers run a GNU/Linux environment --
 ## Learn more
 
 * [What is the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)?](about.md)
+* [Windows Subsystem for Linux is now open source](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2025/05/19/the-windows-subsystem-for-linux-is-now-open-source/)
 * [What's new with WSL 2?](compare-versions.md#whats-new-in-wsl-2)
 * [Comparing WSL 1 and WSL 2](compare-versions.md)
 * [Frequently Asked Questions](faq.yml)
 
+:::image type="content" source="./media/wsl-opensource.png" alt-text="Screenshot of Satya introducing WSL going Open Source at the 2025 Build conference.":::
+
 ## Get started
 
 * [Install WSL](install.md)
 
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ adobe-target: true
 
 # Manual installation steps for older versions of WSL
 
-For simplicity, we generally recommend using the [`wsl --install`](./install.md) to install Windows Subsystem for Linux, but if you're running an older build of Windows, that may not be supported. We have included the manual installation steps below. If you run into an issue during the install process, check the [installation section of the troubleshooting guide](./troubleshooting.md#installation-issues).
+For simplicity, we generally recommend using the [`wsl --install`](./install.md) to install Windows Subsystem for Linux, but if you're running an older build of Windows, or Windows Server Core, that may not be supported. We have included the manual installation steps below. If you run into an issue during the install process, check the [installation section of the troubleshooting guide](./troubleshooting.md#installation-issues).
 
 ## Step 1 - Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux
 
@@ -160,6 +160,10 @@ curl.exe -L -o ubuntu-2004.appx https://aka.ms/wslubuntu2004
 
 In this example, `curl.exe` is executed (not just `curl`) to ensure that, in PowerShell, the real curl executable is invoked, not the PowerShell curl alias for [Invoke-WebRequest](/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/invoke-webrequest).
 
+### Installing the Appx package with Add-AppxPackage
+
+**Note** The following command won't work on Server Core installations
+
 Once the distribution has been downloaded, navigate to the folder containing the download and run the following command in that directory, where `app-name` is the name of the Linux distribution .appx file.
 
 ```Powershell
 
@@ -9,11 +9,11 @@ ms.topic: article
 
 The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is available for installation on Windows Server 2019 (version 1709) and later. This guide will walk through the steps of enabling WSL on your machine.
 
-## Install WSL on Windows Server 2022
+## Install WSL on Windows Server 2022 and 2025 Desktop Experience
 
 [Windows Server 2022](/windows-server/get-started/whats-new-in-windows-server-2022) now supports a simple WSL installation using the command:
 
-```bash
+```cmd
 wsl --install
 ```
 
@@ -30,9 +30,9 @@ See the standard WSL docs for more information on how to:
 - [Add additional distributions](./setup/environment.md#add-additional-distributions).
 - [Use Git with WSL](./tutorials/wsl-git.md).
 
-## Install WSL on previous versions of Windows Server
+## Install WSL on previous versions of Windows Server and Server Core
 
-To install WSL on Windows Server 2019 (version 1709+), you can follow the manual install steps below.
+To install WSL on Windows Server 2019 (version 1709+), as well as Server Core for 2019 and later you can follow the manual install steps below.
 
 ### Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux
 
@@ -41,7 +41,16 @@ Before you can run Linux distributions on Windows, you must enable the "Windows
 Open PowerShell **as Administrator** and run:
 
 ```powershell
-Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux
+Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux, VirtualMachinePlatform
+```
+
+### Install the WSL Kernel update for WSL 2
+
+This is not necessary for server core 2025.
+
+```powershell
+Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://wslstorestorage.blob.core.windows.net/wslblob/wsl_update_x64.msi" -OutFile ".\wsl_update_x64.msi"
+Start-Process "msiexec.exe" -ArgumentList "/i .\wsl_update_x64.msi /quiet" -NoNewWindow -Wait
 ```
 
 ### Download a Linux distribution
@@ -50,31 +59,35 @@ See the [Downloading distributions](install-manual.md#downloading-distributions)
 
 ### Extract and install a Linux distribution
 
-Now that you've downloaded a Linux distribution, in order to extract its contents and manually install, follow these steps:
+Now that you've downloaded a Linux distribution, in order to extract its contents and manually install, follow these steps. Not that you will be downloading an appx file that contains several appx files. In this example we will use debian.
 
-1. Extract the `<DistributionName>.appx` package's contents, using PowerShell:
+1. List the contents of the appx using tar.exe:
 
-    ```powershell
-    Rename-Item .\Ubuntu.appx .\Ubuntu.zip
-    Expand-Archive .\Ubuntu.zip .\Ubuntu
+    ```cmd
+    > tar -tf .\debian.appx
+    DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_ARM64.appx
+    DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_scale-100.appx
+    DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_scale-125.appx
+    DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_scale-150.appx
+    DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_scale-400.appx
+    DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_x64.appx
     ```
+    In our example we have a x64 bit server so we want to install `DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_x64.appx`.
 
-2. Once the distribution has been downloaded, navigate to the folder containing the download and run the following command in that directory, where `app-name` is the name of the Linux distribution .appx file.
-
-    ```Powershell
-    Add-AppxPackage .\app_name.appx
-    ```
+2. Unzip the contents to a new folder called `\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\DebianWSL\`.
 
-    > [!CAUTION]
-    > **Installation failed with error 0x8007007e**: If you receive this error, then your system doesn't support WSL. Ensure that you're running Windows build 16215 or later. [Check your build](troubleshooting.md#check-your-build-number). Also check to [confirm that WSL is enabled](troubleshooting.md#confirm-wsl-is-enabled) and your computer was restarted after the feature was enabled.  
+    ```powershell
+     mkdir "$env:USERPROFILE\AppData\Local\DebianWSL" | Out-Null
+    tar -xf .\DistroLauncher-Appx_1.12.2.0_x64.appx -C $"env:USERPROFILE\AppData\Local\DebianWSL"
+    ```    
 
-3. Add your Linux distribution path to the Windows environment PATH (`C:\Users\Administrator\Ubuntu` in this example), using PowerShell:
+4. Add your Linux distribution path to the Windows environment PATH (`C:\Users\Administrator\Ubuntu` in this example), using PowerShell:
 
     ```powershell
     $userenv = [System.Environment]::GetEnvironmentVariable("Path", "User")
-    [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", $userenv + ";C:\Users\Administrator\Ubuntu", "User")
+    [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", $userenv + ";$env:USERPROFILE\AppData\Local\DebianWSL", "User")
     ```
 
-You can now launch your distribution from any path by typing `<DistributionName>.exe`. For example: `ubuntu.exe`.
+You can now launch your distribution from any path by typing `<DistributionName>.exe`. For example: `ubuntu.exe`. Note that you will need to launch a new powershell instance from the start menu or log off and log on again in the case of Server core to refresh your path
 
 Once installation is complete, you can [create a user account and password for your new Linux distribution](./setup/environment.md#set-up-your-linux-username-and-password).