wslc all commands give E_INVALIDARG

[djc5166]

Windows Version

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26200.8655]

WSL Version

2.9.3.0

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

6.18.35.2-1

Distro Version

NA

Other Software

No response

Repro Steps

PS > wslc version
wslc 2.9.3.0
PS > wslc run --rm hello-world
The parameter is incorrect.
Error code: E_INVALIDARG
PS > wslc container list
The parameter is incorrect.
Error code: E_INVALIDARG
PS > wslc --help
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
For privacy information about this product please visit https://aka.ms/privacy.

WSLC is the Windows Subsystem for Linux Container CLI tool. It enables management and interaction with WSL containers from the command line.

Usage: wslc  [<command>] [<options>]

The following commands are available:
  container  Manage containers.
  image      Manage images.
  network    Manage networks.
  registry   Manage registry credentials.
  settings   Open the settings file in the default editor.
  system     System-level commands
  volume     Manage volumes.
  attach     Attach to a container.
  build      Build an image from a Dockerfile.
  create     Create a container.
  exec       Execute a command in a running container.
  export     Export a container's filesystem as a tar archive.
  images     List images.
  import     Import an image from a tarball.
  inspect    Inspect objects.
  kill       Kill containers.
  list       List containers.
  load       Load images.
  login      Log in to a registry.
  logout     Log out from a registry.
  logs       View container logs.
  pull       Pull images.
  push       Upload an image to a registry.
  remove     Remove containers.
  rmi        Remove images.
  run        Run a container.
  save       Save images.
  start      Start a container.
  stats      Display container resource usage statistics.
  stop       Stop containers.
  tag        Tag an image.
  version    Show version information.

For more details on a specific command, pass it the help argument. [-?]

The following options are available:
  -v,--version  Show version information for this tool
  -?,--help     Shows help about the selected command

Expected Behavior

Following along from https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/tutorials/wsl-containers
wlsc commands should work, list images, containers, run them, etc.

Same result from within any distro, and from just powershell

Actual Behavior

wlsc commands don't work, they all return E_INVALIDARG except for version and help

Diagnostic Logs

WslLogs-2026-06-29_15-26-56.tar.gz

[github-actions]

Diagnostic information

.wslconfig found
Detected appx version: 2.9.3.0

[OneBlue]

Thank you for reporting this @djc5166. Looking at the logs, this is most likely caused by a session name generation bug. This is based on your Windows username, and looking at the code, I'm guessing that your Windows username includes a ".", is it the case ? If so this should be easy to fix

[djc5166]

Thank you for reporting this @djc5166. Looking at the logs, this is most likely caused by a session name generation. This is based on your Windows username, and looking at the code, I'm guessing that your Windows username includes a ".", is it the case ? If so this should be easy to fix

Yes, I'm stuck with a first.last username, so it indeed includes "."'s

[OneBlue]

Yes, I'm stuck with a first.last username, so it indeed includes "."'s

Ok thank you for confirming. We just merged the fix so it will be included in the next pre-release. If you'd like try to wslc now you could also build the latest master.