📢 Windows 10 build 20211 adds ability to access Linux files with Windows Explorer

Microsoft releases a new Windows 10 build for the Windows Insiders who are on the Dev Channel. The latest Windows 10 build 20211 contains two new features. Among these, one is the ability to search for default apps, and the other is the ability to access the Linux file systems in WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux).

If you are a Windows Insider and your device is enrolled against the Dev Channel, you can grab the latest preview build through Windows Update. In this post, we are going to learn how to access Linux files with Windows Explorer in Windows 10.

Starting with Windows Insiders Preview Build 20211, Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL2) will offer you a new feature: wsl --mount. This new parameter allows you to attach a physical disk and mount it inside WSL2, enabling you to access the filesystems that aren't natively supported by Windows (e.g. ext4).

If you are dual booting with Windows and Linux operating systems using different disks, you can now access your Linux files from the Explorer window in Windows 10.

To mount a disk, open a PowerShell window with administrator privileges and run:

wsl --mount [DiskPath]

To list the available disks in Windows, run:

wmic diskdrive list brief

To unmount and detach the disk from WSL2, run:

wsl --unmount [Diskpath]

Once mounted, it is now possible to access these disks through the Windows Explorer by navigating to "\wsl$" and then to the mount folder.