CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windows-subsystem-for-linux
Nehal Damania
Nehal Damania

Reputation: 9018

WSL Stopped working with error: 0x80070003

WSL2 stopped working. When, I do a new installation of linux distro, it throws the following error on click of the launch button:

Installing, this may take a few minutes...
WslRegisterDistribution failed with error: 0x80070003
Error: 0x80070003 The system cannot find the path specified.

Press any key to continue...

the wsl --help command works fine however wsl -l command and other wsl commands throw the following error

The system cannot find the path specified.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 10055

Answers (3)

Jesus Iniesta
Jesus Iniesta

Reputation: 12519

In my case, the issue started with the following error:

The system cannot find the path specified.
Error code: Wsl/Service/CreateInstance/CreateVm/HCS/ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND
Press Enter or Esc to exit...

And, eventually, evolved into:

Installing, this may take a few minutes... 
WslRegisterDistribution failed with error: 0x80070003
Error: 0x80070003 The system cannot find the path specified.

After countless hours trying to resolve WSL issues, and attempted pretty much everything I found online, including:

  • Removing .wslconfig
  • Unregistering all distros
  • Running wsl --uninstall and attempting reinstallation
  • Disabling and re-enabling Windows features
  • Removing empty Windows Subsystem for Linux directory
  • Running Windows Update troubleshooting
  • Uninstalling WSL through Settings
  • Reviewing BIOS settings
  • Running sfc and DISM to repair the system
  • Running chkdsk
  • Reviewing permissions

The only solution that worked was performing an in-place repair of Windows 11, as explained in this guide.

This has been extremely time-consuming and frustrating. Hopefully, this information will save the hassle for others facing similar issues.

Upvotes: 1

Dante Souza e Souza
Dante Souza e Souza

Reputation: 161

Check if you have any .wslconfig inside your profile in %USERPROFILE% folder and delete it! I finally got it working

FIY: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/3232#issuecomment-777023885

Upvotes: 10

Ishaan Pathak
Ishaan Pathak

Reputation: 53

I was getting the same issue and it was due to my bad attempt at deleting the installed Distro. If yours is the same case, this should be pretty easy to fix, use the wsl --unregister <DISTRO_NAME> which in my case was debian so wsl --unregister debian unregistered the old path for the Debian executable and then I installed Debian again. This worked for my personal case but I thought it might help someone on the internet.

Upvotes: 2

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