Delete the bash.exe alias in System32 AND WindowsApps folders

[julianxhokaxhiu]

Hello,

I'm trying to understand how can I delete the bash.exe alias after I enabled and installed WSL on Windows 11. This alias seems currently deprecated and I need to delete it because of a current conflict with vcpkg ( see microsoft/vcpkg#29658 (comment) ).

Simply deleting it although from explorer won't work, throwing an error 0x80070780. I did try to search online but I wasn't able to find anything related. Can anyone please help me figure out how to delete it while preserving the WSL installation?

Thank you in advance for any help given,
Julian

[Biswa96]

Instead of deleting system file, you should remove some paths from PATH environment variable. When you want to use bash.exe other than WSL's one, try to prepend the directory path instead of appending it. For example, using command like this set PATH=C:\path\to\other\dir;%PATH%

[julianxhokaxhiu]

I wish it was that easy. If you look at the issue that's exactly the proposed solution but it won't come anytime soon and I am blocked atm. This is why I'm asking for this other option. Removing the PATHs from my own env is not an option either as I need it for other purposes. Thanks anyway.

[jonmoore]

Removing c:\windows\system32 from PATH is hardly practical, while fiddling with PATH to prepend user-specified directories goes hard against the Windows default behavior of placing the system PATH before the user one.

[elsaco]

PS C:\Windows\System32> cacls c:\windows\system32\bash.exe
c:\windows\system32\bash.exe NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller:F
                             BUILTIN\Administrators:R
                             NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:R
                             BUILTIN\Users:R
                             APPLICATION PACKAGE AUTHORITY\ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES:R
                             APPLICATION PACKAGE AUTHORITY\ALL RESTRICTED APPLICATION PACKAGES:R

Bash launcher is owned by the TrustedInstaller and that makes it difficult to delete. It can be nuked! Use takeown and cacls utils or boot with a live Linux distro, mount the partition and delete bash.exe.

⚠️ It might nuke your system also ⚠️

[julianxhokaxhiu]

Yeah I thought it would have been about permissions...couldn't this be provided as part of the WSL solution? Like I want WSL but I don't want to have bash.exe as an alias.

[jonmoore]

Seems like the best of a bad situation.
If one doesn't need WSL then this will work (1 on its own is insufficient)

1. Remove WSL from "Add or remove programs"
2. Deselect "Windows Subsystem for Linux" in "Turn Windows features on or off"
3. Restart Windows

It's common to run bash inside standard (non-WSL) Windows and the Windows and WSL devs must know this. I find it really unprofessional of Microsoft to treat a critical item like C:\Windows\System32 so casually.