Move WSL from C Drive to Other Drive

Table of Contents

Move WSL from C Drive to Other Drive

Move WSL in \\wsl$ to W:\WSL.

  1. Open PowerShell as Administrator
  2. Shutdown WSL wsl --shutdown
  3. Check wsl version wsl --list --verbose
  4. Create a new directory on the target drive mkdir W:\WSL
  5. Export the WSL distribution Ubuntu-22.04 to the new directory as a tar file wsl --export Ubuntu-22.04 W:\WSL\Ubuntu-22.04.tar
  6. Unregister the WSL distribution wsl --unregister Ubuntu-22.04
  7. Import the WSL distribution from the tar file to the new directory wsl --import Ubuntu-22.04 W:\WSL\Ubuntu-22.04 W:\WSL\Ubuntu-22.04.tar --version 2
  8. Set the default WSL distribution to the newly imported one wsl --set-default Ubuntu-22.04

Login User Settings

The new WSL distribution’s login user is set to the root user by default. To change it to your user:

  1. Open the WSL distribution wsl -d Ubuntu-22.04
  2. Change the login user to your user vim /etc/wsl.conf and add the following lines:
[user]
default=your_username
  1. Save and exit the editor
  2. Restart the WSL distribution wsl --shutdown and then wsl -d Ubuntu-22.04