Windows 10 May 2020 Update arrives with WSL2 built in

Microsoft started pushing out the Windows 10 May 2020 Update today, and the headline for anyone who touches a terminal is WSL2. This is the version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux that runs an actual Linux kernel instead of translating syscalls on the fly, and now it ships as a standard part of Windows 10 rather than something you had to opt into through Insider builds.

If you haven’t been following WSL, the pitch is simple: you get a real Linux environment sitting right next to your normal Windows desktop, no dual-boot, no separate VM software to babysit. WSL1 already did a version of this, but it worked by translating Linux system calls into Windows equivalents, which meant certain things (Docker, specific filesystem behaviors, some networking) never quite worked right. WSL2 swaps that translation layer for a lightweight VM running a real, Microsoft-maintained Linux kernel. That should mean broader compatibility with existing Linux tools and, in a lot of workloads, noticeably better performance — file I/O in particular was a sore spot on WSL1.

For developers who’ve been waiting to try this out, it means you no longer need to be on the Insider/fast-ring builds to get it. Once the update lands on your machine, WSL2 is just there.

What else is in the update

WSL2 is the part I care about most, but it’s not the only thing in version 2004. Cortana is getting reworked into more of a standalone, chat-based app rather than being wired directly into search and the taskbar the way it has been — a sign Microsoft is stepping back from the “assistant everywhere” approach. There’s also a new Cloud Download option in the recovery settings, which lets you reset your PC by pulling a fresh copy of Windows from Microsoft’s servers instead of relying on files already on your machine. That’s a nice option if your local install is too broken to reset itself, which is exactly the kind of situation where you need it most.

As always with major Windows feature updates, the rollout is staged — Microsoft is trickling this out over time rather than flipping it on for everyone at once, so don’t panic if Windows Update doesn’t show it to you today. You can still grab it manually through the Update Assistant if you’re impatient, though I’d generally recommend letting Microsoft’s staged rollout logic do its thing rather than forcing an early install, especially on a machine you rely on daily.

For anyone doing web or backend development on Windows, this is a good moment to give WSL2 a real shot. Being able to run a proper Linux dev environment without leaving Windows, and without VirtualBox or VMware in the loop, closes a gap that’s been annoying for years.

Unrelated to any of this, but worth a mention since it happened today too: SpaceX scrubbed the first launch attempt of Demo-2, the crewed test flight for the Crew Dragon capsule, because of bad weather. No word yet on when they’ll try again, but given how much is riding on this mission, a delay for weather is the least dramatic reason to postpone.