Forgot enabling Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux?

[BlackHole1]

Currently, on Windows, it is necessary to enable both Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux and VirtualMachinePlatform simultaneously (see: https://github.com/containers/podman/blob/4dc2e086186e0a32931949fa856816b73de45d74/pkg/machine/wsl/machine.go#L745-L753). However, in podman-desktop, only VirtualMachinePlatform is being detected. Is there any specific reason for this?

Ref:

podman-desktop/extensions/podman/src/podman-install.ts

Lines 406 to 427 in bc24434

	class VirtualMachinePlatformCheck extends BaseCheck {
	title = 'Virtual Machine Platform Enabled';
	async execute(): Promise<extensionApi.CheckResult> {
	try {
	// set CurrentUICulture to force output in english
	const res = await execPromise('powershell.exe', [
	'(Get-WmiObject -Query "Select * from Win32_OptionalFeature where InstallState = \'1\'").Name | select-string VirtualMachinePlatform',
	]);
	if (res.indexOf('VirtualMachinePlatform') >= 0) {
	return this.createSuccessfulResult();
	}
	} catch (err) {
	// ignore error, this means that VirtualMachinePlatform not enabled
	}
	return this.createFailureResult(
	'Virtual Machine Platform should be enabled to be able to run Podman.',
	'Enable Virtual Machine Platform',
	'https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual#step-3---enable-virtual-machine-feature',
	);
	}
	}

/cc @evidolob

[jeffmaury]

There is also a WSL2Check:

podman-desktop/extensions/podman/src/podman-install.ts

Line 429 in bc24434

class WSL2Check extends BaseCheck {

[BlackHole1]

Hey @jonboulle 👋. I have looked at this piece of code, but it still doesn't answer my question. In the WSL2Check class, it only checks if the WSL version is supported and if it has administrator privileges. But this is unrelated to my question about why there is no support for enabling Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux.

[BlackHole1]

See:

1. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual#step-1---enable-the-windows-subsystem-for-linux
2. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual#step-3---enable-virtual-machine-feature

[jeffmaury]

I would guess that this call will return an error is WSL is not set but we should wait for @evidolob

[evidolob]

But this is unrelated to my question about why there is no support for enabling Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux.

Because we don't do any OS modification during installation, we just perform checks. So we don't enable even VirtualMachinePlatform, we just check that that is enabled.
Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux not all Windows has that as separate feature(you could install it from marketplace, for example), so for wsl2 we check command and it's output.

I would guess that this call will return an error is WSL is not set but we should wait for @evidolob

Yes that true.

The problem with Windows, that not all user account has right to enable windows features, so during podman installation we just check system requirements, and inform user if something is missing. And it up to user to solve them.

[BlackHole1]

Thanks, @jeffmaury and @evidolob for your reply!