Skip to main content

Updating the Windows Subsystem for Linux

Posted September 2016 by Steve Sinchak

If you installed the Windows subsystem for Linux on your Windows 10 PC so you could run Bash and other Linux apps on Windows 10, I am going to show you some basic maintenance tasks to keep everything up to date and your PC secure.  Just like other apps and operating systems, the more software you install the more you need to keep up to date, otherwise you risk running an outdated version that could make your PC vulnerable.

The good news is the Windows subsystem for Linux and the Bash universal Windows App makes it easy to keep your Linux apps/packages up to date with the APT package utility.  All you need to do is run two commands to make sure everything is current.

First, start up Bash by opening the Start Menu, type in Bash and hit Enter.

Opening Bash on Windows 10

Once Bash has started up, you need to update the local package repositories.  You can do that by typing in this command:

sudo apt-get update

You may be prompted to enter your root password that was setup when you first installed Bash.  Then, you will see the APT package manager reach out to a number of sources to downloaded the latest package meta data.

Running sudo apt-get update

Once this has completed it is time to install the updated packages.  Type in the following and hit Enter:

sudo apt-get upgrade

APT will generate a list of packages that will be updated and ask you for confirmation, hit Y and Enter to begin updating.

Running sudo apt-get upgrade on Windows 10

Depending on the number of package updates available this can take some time, but once this is completed the Linux side of the house is up-to-date.  Make sure to run these two commands monthly to ensure all of your packages, and any associated security vulnerabilities, are fully patched so your PC is protected.

Related Posts


I recently upgraded my home network from gigabit to 10G so I could take advantage of faster transfers between my Synology NAS, Proxmox server, and workstations. But while editing family video clips stored on my NAS, something did not feel right. Every device was connected at 10GbE, but file copy speeds were slower than expected. This made me wonder, are there bottlenecks in my network?

Read More

With remote work the new standard, having a fast and quality Internet connection and WiFi has become as important as reliable electricity. And if you work in IT support, confirming an end user's home internet, internal network, and WiFi is healthy without errors is the first step of troubleshooting any slowness or video conferencing issue with Zoom, Webex or Teams.

Read More

I've written about a few methods over the years to create a bootable USB flash drive from a Windows 10 ISO file.  But recently I switched to using a new tool called Rufus that is both reliable at successfully creating bootable media and automating many steps to quickly get the job done so you can perform a clean install.  This is very helpful when performing a clean install of the [Windows 10 20H2...

Read More

The latest update to Windows 10 known officially as the October 2020 update and 20H2 is ready for use and has begun rolling out.  The final build number of the 20H2 update is 19042 with minor revisions rolling out along with normal security updates via Windows Update. At this time the new build is available to testers before Microsoft pushes it to millions of users in the weeks ahead.  Check out the...

Read More