What can cause reset of HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss

[szarykott]

I've been trying to change subnets used by WSL2 in order to make it work with VPN.

As mentioned in many solutions, I edited HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Lxss registry entry to desired values.

However, each time I start WSL after reboot or wsl --shutdown values are reset to default. I am puzzled. Did anyone encounter something like it?

[jhe-pf]

I did encounter the same, just now.

After playing around, asking the internet and Github Copilot:
The values always get overwritten when the wsl is shutting down (either by manually shutting it down or rebooting), as you experienced yourself.

The trick is:

1. Shutdown the wsl
2. Change the values
3. Do an immediate reboot

At the next boot, when wsl gets started, it reads the new/your values from the registry and from that moment in time they are used by the wsl. (and of course: written back when shutting down the wsl)