WSL2 Under the Hood: One VM, One File, One IP That Never Stays the Same

Once WSL2 is up and running, some strange things start to happen: you delete gigabytes of files in Linux and Windows disk usage doesn't budge; cross-system file access is painfully slow; a network script that worked fine yesterday suddenly breaks after a wsl --shutdown. None of this is a bug. It all traces back to three things at the core of WSL2's design — a special kind of VM, a single file that…