Microsoft Confirms You Can Run WSL Containers on Windows 10

We recently installed WSL Containers on Windows 11 and built a custom Linux container from scratch to evaluate its performance without relying on Docker Desktop. Microsoft has now confirmed that WSL Containers also work on Windows 10, making it accessible to a broader range of users.

Extended Support for Windows 10

Although Windows 10 reached its end of support on October 14, 2025, Microsoft has extended the Consumer Extended Security Updates (ESU) program through October 12, 2027, as first reported by Windows Latest. This means millions of Windows 10 PCs will remain in use for years, and WSL Containers add another reason to stick with the 11-year-old operating system.

What Is WSL and WSL Containers?

WSL, or Windows Subsystem for Linux, has been part of Windows since 2016. WSL 2, introduced in 2019, brought a real Linux kernel running inside a lightweight virtual machine (VM), replacing the earlier translation layer. This upgrade made proper Docker support possible for Windows users.

Contrary to some early reports, Microsoft has not released a WSL 3. Instead, it introduced WSL Containers, a built-in feature to create, run, and manage Linux containers directly in Windows without requiring Docker Desktop or similar tools. WSL Containers use wslc.exe, a command-line tool with a syntax familiar to Docker users.

Does WSL Container Work on Windows 10?

Yes, it does. Craig Loewen, the Microsoft product manager leading WSL development, confirmed that WSL Containers work on Windows 10 in the same way as on Windows 11. He stated:

“This works anywhere WSL is supported today, which includes the vast majority™️ of supported Windows versions. So yes, this will work on Windows 10 too :)”

To use WSL Containers, your system must run Windows 10 version 2004 (Build 19041) or later. WSL Containers install as a WSL update rather than a Windows version-gated feature. If WSL 2 is already running on your system, WSL Containers will work seamlessly.

How to Install WSL Containers on Windows 10

To install WSL Containers, ensure WSL is already running. Unlike Windows 11, Windows 10 does not have the Terminal pre-installed. While PowerShell can execute all necessary commands, the tabs in Terminal provide a more efficient experience. Installing Terminal is highly recommended before proceeding:

• Check your Windows 10 build version to confirm compatibility.
• Install WSL if it is not already present.
• Run updates to ensure WSL is up to date.

It is important to note that WSL Containers is still a pre-release feature, so occasional issues may arise. For instance, some users have encountered a “Catastrophic failure, Error code: E_UNEXPECTED” message on their first container launch, which is typically resolved with a system reboot.

Building a Live Dashboard with WSL Containers

In our tests, we built a live dashboard using WSL Containers on Windows 10. The container runs a lightweight Flask application that retrieves live system metrics such as CPU load, memory usage, uptime, and the kernel string. These metrics are displayed on a dark-themed dashboard with gradient titles, colored stat cards, animated usage bars, and a terminal-style panel for raw kernel output.

All data is fetched from the Linux container environment using tools like psutil for system stats and uname -a for kernel information. The data is rendered as HTML and served via Flask on port 5000.

We used the following command to build the container image:

wslc build -t wsl-dashboard .

To run the container and access the dashboard through a browser, we used:

wslc run -p 5000:5000 wsl-dashboard

The process bypassed Docker entirely, as the image was built and run using WSL Container’s native tools. The container runtime, Moby, is the same engine on which Docker is built, ensuring compatibility and efficiency.

GPU Passthrough on Windows 10

WSL Containers also support GPU passthrough using the --gpus all flag for containers built with CUDA. The passthrough utilizes the Windows NVIDIA driver, requiring no additional installations on the Linux side. CUDA libraries are automatically exposed to containers requesting GPU access.

For example, running the following command confirms GPU availability for a container:

wslc run –rm –gpus all pytorch/pytorch:2.5.1-cuda12.4-cudnn9-runtime \python -c “import torch; print(torch.cuda.is_available())”

This enables tasks like fine-tuning small models, running local AI inference, or testing CUDA code on a Windows 10 machine with a dedicated GPU, achieving performance close to native Linux speeds.

Should You Use WSL Containers on Windows 10?

If you plan to continue using Windows 10 until the ESU program ends in October 2027, WSL Containers provide a compelling reason to incorporate Linux tools into your workflow without additional installations. However, as of now, WSL Containers is still a pre-release feature, and its functionality is ideal for single-container use cases rather than complex, multi-service applications.

Microsoft deserves credit for ensuring that WSL Containers work on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. Whether future updates will continue to support Windows 10 remains uncertain. However, testing WSL Containers comes at no cost, making it worth exploring on your existing Windows 10 PC.

Windows Latest depends on readers like you. Make us your preferred source on Google Discover and Google Search to help our independent reporting reach more readers.