WSL 3.0.1 GA: Native Linux Containers on Windows Without Docker

Version 3.0.1 Marks wslc General Availability

Microsoft has delivered on its autumn promise: WSL updated to 3.0.1 and the wslc container tool is now GA (General Availability). This means Windows can run Linux containers natively without installing Docker. The version jump from 2.9.x to 3.0.1 reflects the container feature graduating from preview, not a rewrite of WSL itself. As WSL product manager Craig Loewen clarified, wslc is an added capability layer on top of existing WSL, not a successor to WSL 2. Existing distributions, configurations, and data remain untouched.

New Commands Added Since Preview

The GA release introduces a batch of commands missing from the preview:

Container lifecycle completed: wslc container restart (restart a running container) and wslc container cp (copy files to/from containers using tar).

Environment status at a glance: wslc system info shows the overall container environment state in one command.

Finer network control: wslc network connect / wslc network disconnect attach or detach containers from networks; wslc network create supports arbitrary network driver parameters.

Real-time activity stream: wslc events prints live container activity, similar to docker events.

Other practical additions: container health checks; --stop-timeout flag for wslc create / run (set -1 for infinite wait); --mount support for create / run; customizable default session storage path.

Enterprise features arrived in parallel: Intune can toggle WSL containers globally and configure allowed image registries; Defender for Endpoint monitors processes, files, and network activity inside containers and correlates events back to the Windows host.

Ecosystem integration is advancing: VS Code dev containers 0.88.0 can set wslc as the default driver; Aspire and VS Code container extension 1.1.0 have integrated; a community terminal panel called lazywslc (built by the WSL PM in spare time) is also available.

Upgrade: One Command

Upgrading after GA is simpler — no --pre-release flag needed. In PowerShell or terminal:

wsl --update
wsl --shutdown
wslc --version

The last command should show 3.0.1. After installation, run wsl --shutdown again to restart WSL, then reopen the terminal. Alternatively, download the latest installer from the microsoft/WSL GitHub releases page.

Quick Start Examples

Command style mirrors Docker. Run an nginx container: wslc run -d -p 8080:80 nginx Open http://localhost:8080 to see the welcome page. For GPU-accelerated AI workloads:

wslc run --rm --gpus all pytorch/pytorch:2.5.1-cuda12.4-cudnn9-runtime python -c "import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available())"

The --gpus all flag passes the GPU through; a return value of True confirms CUDA availability inside the container.

Test the new commands:

wslc system info
wslc container cp my-nginx:/etc/nginx/nginx.conf .
wslc events

One Major Gap Remains

Despite GA, docker compose support is still missing. Microsoft acknowledges this is the most requested feature and has scheduled it for the next phase, aiming to run existing compose.yaml files unchanged. Until then, developers relying on multi-container orchestration will still need Docker Desktop.

For Ubuntu users, this milestone is worth watching. Containers are the heart of modern development workflows; once Windows runs Linux containers well enough, the "Windows desktop + Ubuntu toolchain" combination becomes increasingly seamless — and the first distro most people install in WSL is still Ubuntu.