WslRegisterDistribution failed with error: 0xffffffff

Question

Unable to install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS in WSL 2. I have enabled all the required things for WSl. It is resulting following error.

Answer 1

Please try the following:

1. Go to System Tools => Resource Monitor GUI for windows
2. Check which service is using port 53,
3. Once you identify it, kill the process as follows: taskkill /f /pid [PID].
4. Go to Users/[youruser]/AppData/Local/Packages/ and look for a folder called CanonicalGroupLimitedUbuntu... then right click on it, go to Properties => Advanced Options and disable compression for the folder, then click accept and also apply this change for subfolders.

[Note] Windows uses Compression for the installation folders so is not possible to run it.

Once this is done, try to run your installation and should be working.

Hope it helps. Regards

Answer 2

Open PowerShell as Administrator and run this command to set WSL back to 1.

PS C:> wsl --set-default-version 1

If you have run the kernel update as of today before installing Ubuntu or Kali you will encounter this issue. This is the only way I have found to work around the issue. You can switch it back to WSL 2 after installing OS.

/TCG