More easily invoke Windows apps and tools from Bash on Windows

November 10, 2016 Nov 10, 2016 11/10/16
Rich Turner
Along with support for ifconfig & network connection enumeration, Windows 10 Insider Build 14965 delivers a small but important change was made which will enable you more easily invoke Windows tools & applications from within Bash: Your Windows user environment path is now appended to the WSL path by default. This means you can now ...

ifconfig and network connection enumeration support in Windows 10 Insider build 14965

November 10, 2016 Nov 10, 2016 11/10/16
Rich Turner
Enable network connection enumeration is currently the most-requested idea in our command-line User Voice. Or at least it was, until Windows 10 Insider build #14965 was released, which support for network connection enumeration: Below is a screenshot of Bash on Windows running ifconfig: This new feature should unblock tools/...

WSL adds Ubuntu 16.04 Xenial support

October 19, 2016 Oct 19, 2016 10/19/16
Rich Turner
Not only does Windows 10 Insider build #14951 introduce Bash Windows interop, it also delivers support for Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial). While many of our more intrepid early-adopters have manually upgraded their Ubuntu 14.04 instances to Ubuntu 16.04, as of Windows 10 Insider build #14951, if you clean-install a new Linux instance or uninstall and...

Interop between Windows and Bash

October 19, 2016 Oct 19, 2016 10/19/16
Rich Turner
Note: Also be sure to read the follow-up to this post that covers a subsequent improvement in that you no longer have to specify the absolute path to Windows executables if they exist on your path! Content below updated to reflect this change! Windows 10 Insider build #14951 has just landed and includes a very exciting new feature that ...

24-bit Color in the Windows Console!

September 22, 2016 Sep 22, 2016 09/22/16
Rich Turner
One of the most frequent requests we receive is to increase the number of colors that the Windows Console can support. We love nothing more than to deliver features you ask for! But rather than just add a few more colors, or limit our console to a mere 256 colors, in Windows 10 Insiders Build #14931,  we've updated the Windows Console to ...

Hanselman takes a tour around Bash on Windows

July 1, 2016 Jul 1, 2016 07/1/16
Rich Turner
If you're anything like me, you're already overloaded with work/studies & life, and there's just never enough time to go and dig into all the awesome new open-source projects, cool new tools, exciting new languages & platforms, and any amount of other technology that appears almost hourly these days. Wouldn't it be great if someone ...

New post and video on WSL filesystem features

June 15, 2016 Jun 15, 2016 06/15/16
Rich Turner
One of the most frequent questions we get about Bash/WSL is how WSL provides a Linux-compatible filesystem atop NTFS and how filesystem interop works. Well, wonder no more dear reader - in this new blog post and the video below, Sven Groot explains to Seth Juarez how WSL's filesystem support works...

New post & video on how WSL System Calls work

June 8, 2016 Jun 8, 2016 06/8/16
Rich Turner
One of the most interesting things about the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is its ability to run unmodified Linux ELF64 binaries atop the Windows Kernel. "How?" is a question we receive regularly from many of you. Ask and ye shall receive :) In this new post, Stephen Hufnagel explains to Seth Juarez how WSL System Calls (syscalls) work...

Huge improvements to Bash on Ubuntu on Windows in Build 14361

June 8, 2016 Jun 8, 2016 06/8/16
Rich Turner
Dona Sarkar, the new owner of the Windows Insider Big Red Release Button has just announced the release of Windows 10 Anniversary Update Insiders Build 14361 to the fast-ring: Start your download engines - this is a release filled with huge improvements, too numerous to list here, but which are nicely summarized in the release email. Also ...