Windows 10: How to make GUI apps work in wsl, and add them to your Start Menu (Crosspost from r/windows)

submitted by /u/erikdaderp
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:)

 

Start menu is not working on Windows 10

Hi,

Iunderstand the frustration if things are not working fine as expected.

Please help us with below details,

• • • • • 
          When you say "If I sign in under my user name I am in some earlier version", which version you are referring to?
          
        • 
          Did you made any recent changes to your computer prior to the issue?
          
        • 
          When you say “I cannot access the start menu and am limited to IP as a browser” Is it refers to Microsoft Edge?
          

As an initial steps, I suggest you to check for the Windows version. To do so, follow the below steps:

1) Login to your computer through user name on which it show earlier version of Windows.

2) Press Windows key + r.

3) Type winver, hit enter.

For the issue related to start menu, I suggest you to refer to the below Microsoft help article and check,

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ubleshoot-problems-opening-start-menu-cortana

Reply with results and necessary information to help you further.

Thank you.

 

Cannot hide app list in Start Menu Windows Home

Hi, suggestion in this thread on this topic here:
can not hide app list in start menu Solved - Windows 10 Forums

 

Blurry fonts on using Windows default scaling with WSL GUI applications (HiDPI)

Is there a way to fix blurry fonts in linux GUI applications when being run from WSL (Ubuntu 18.04) using the default Windows scaling? Things I have tried so far:

With Xming:

1. Tried disabling Windows scaling and setting it from linux side using GDK_DPI_SCALE=2.5, the problem with this is several things like context menu icons don't play nicely and are often not scaled. Without GDK_DPI_SCALE=2.5, applications are basically unusable since the text is extremely tiny.
   
2. Tried installing all the fonts from C:\Windows\Fonts to C:\Program Files\Xming\fonts\TTF and running mkfontscale, couldn't make it work this way either.
   
3. Tried using VcXsrv, has the same issue.
   

Screenshots

• Clion:
  

• Comparison between emacs (WSL) and VS Code (Windows native)
  

All the resources I have looked up so far:

1. Why are WSL GUI apps rendered with blurry fonts with Xming?: The answer here is specifically for just firefox and electron based applications.
   
2. Gnome-Terminal blurry on Xming: Doesn't have anything helpful in particular either other than a suggestion to disable scaling and using something else than Xming.
   
3. DPI issues running GUI programs on a 4K screen: Suggests using VcXsrv.
   

The main purpose of doing all this is to be able to run text editors(emacs)/IDE(Clion) from WSL. And, the reason I cannot install their windows equivalent is we develop only for linux.

Few system details:

Screen

4K (3840x2160) - 15.6"

OS

• Windows: Windows 10 Home v1803 Build: 17134.345
  
• WSL: Ubuntu 18.04 (Linux username 4.4.0-17134-Microsoft #345-Microsoft Wed Sep 19 17:47:00 PST 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux)