wsl: Unknown key 'user.default' in C:\Users\######\.wslconfig:2

[timothymowens]

Windows Version

10.0.19045.2788

WSL Version

1.1.6.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

5.15.90.1

Distro Version

Ubuntu 22.04.2

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

Add the following entry into %USERPROFILE%/.wslconfig:

[user]
default=#####

Get the following error when starting up WSL 2:

wsl: Unknown key 'user.default' in C:\Users\#####\.wslconfig:2

Expected Behavior

Based on the documentation for .wslconfig (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config), this is a valid entry to define the default user account to use for a WSL 2 session. This has worked just fine until reccently.

Actual Behavior

When launching a WSL 2 session, I get the error:

wsl: Unknown key 'user.default' in C:\Users\#####\.wslconfig:2

Diagnostic Logs

No response

[timothymowens]

As a side note, the hashes are to redact user details.

[Biswa96]

The user.default setting is a per-distro setting and can be set in /etc/wsl.conf only. See the example here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config#example-wslconf-file

[timothymowens]

I'm using WSL 2. WSL 2 uses %USERPROFILE%\.wslconfig and setting the default user in this file has worked for the past year with no issues, until v1.1.6.0 of WSL was released. Was this a recent change? I see the documentation was just updated on 03/19/2023.

The only workaround I've found so far is uninstalling WSL v1.1.6.0 and then manually installing v1.1.3.0 to fix the issue.

[Biswa96]

AFAIK, no options have been moved from .wslconfig to wsl.conf. The user.default settings was in wsl.conf since its addition.

[timothymowens]

I'm guessing then that version 1.1.6.0 added some sort of validation checking for .wslconfig values causing me to see this message. I'll make the proper adjustments on my end