How can I run a Windows executable from WSL (Ubuntu) Bash

ankostis picture ankostis · Aug 12, 2016 · Viewed 29k times · Source

Along with Windows 10 Anniversary update for summer 2016, came the possibility to run ubuntu binaries inside the new Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), a "lightweight" virtualized subsystem.

Unfortunately, launching C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe, another bash ELF binary starts a process inside the WSL, from where you cannot escape! You may launch only other ELF binaries.

So how can I execute *.exe files from Windows Bash?[1]

[1] Question asked also in Microsoft's "official" GH support repo.

Answer

Andrew Mao picture Andrew Mao · Dec 5, 2017

In the Windows 10 Creators Update (build 1703, April 2017), this is natively supported. So you can now run Windows binaries from Linux...

linux to windows

...and vice versa:

windows to linux

For more information, see the above linked article.