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rxw1/EnableLUA.md

Created June 30, 2023 12:23
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Fix Windows 11 explorer.exe not seeing mounted files in WSL2
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EnableLUA.md

Fri Jun 30 02:21:11 PM CEST 2023

Fix Windows 11 explorer.exe not seeing mounted files in WSL2

Problem

  • Windows 11 explorer.exe (and any other application running on Windows) is not being able to browse additionally mounted WSL2 directories.

  • The problem seems to be caused by Windows' User Account Control (UAC) and may appear after a Windows update without manually changing any setting.

Solution

  • As mentioned here microsoft/WSL#7834 (comment), the issue is fixed by disabling UAC and rebooting Windows.

  • What is not mentioned in the above issue, is, that the issue will still be fixed after UAC is enabled again after disabling it.

  • So, in other words:

  1. Disable UAC:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
  1. Reboot
  2. Enable UAC:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
  1. Reboot
  • Windows applications should be able to access WSL mounts normally again.
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