WSL Tips: Switching to zsh and Adding to the Right-Click Menu

Switching to zsh

Notes

In Windows Subsystem for Linux, running chsh -s /bin/zsh does not successfully change the default shell to zsh. When opening WSL, the default shell is still bash. This is because WSL does not execute login-related components at startup, and these components are related to the default shell. Microsoft is already aware of this issue, but has no plans to fix it.

Method

We can use a simple workaround to open zsh at the same time when opening WSL. Add the following to ~/.bashrc

bash -c zsh

References

https://github.com/Microsoft/WSL/issues/477

Adding to the Right-Click Menu

1. Open Run, type regedit to launch Registry Editor

2. Find this folder in the registry \HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\Background\shell\

3. Select the shell folder, right-click to create a new key, double-click the Default value, and change it to WSL Shell Here; this is the name displayed in the right-click menu

4. Add a string value under Default, named Icon, double-click to change its value to the path of the icon you want, which can be .ico and .exe files

5. Under WSL Shell Here, create a new key named command, and change this key's Default value to the Ubuntu exe file path; mine is "C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe", note that there should be double quotes on both sides

Ps: Why does today's screenshot look like this = =.. Reason: Out and about. Can only use Windows on my laptop

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