Kex cannot run in the pre-release WSL

Kali Linux Forums Kali Linux Troubleshooting
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What have you tried:
Yeah. I’ve tried the pre-release version of WSL(version 2.5.4.0) and reinstalled the distrobution along with kali-win-kex. However, something went wrong. But it acted well in the previous version.

What is the error:
When I tried kex --esm -i -s, the output is as follows.

┌──(bonjour㉿DESKTOP-BONJOUR)-[~]
└─$ kex --esm -i -s
run-detectors: unable to find an interpreter for /mnt/c/Windows/system32/route.exe
Starting Win-KeX server (ESM)
        Win-KeX server (ESM) is stopped
Starting Win-KeX client (ESM)
run-detectors: unable to find an interpreter for /mnt/c/Windows/system32/cmdkey.exe
Please enter Win-KeX server (ESM) password for user bonjour:

┌──(bonjour㉿DESKTOP-BONJOUR)-[~]
└─$ run-detectors: unable to find an interpreter for /mnt/c/Windows/system32/mstsc.exe

And other kex’s modes behave incorrectly as well.

What device is this on:
WSL(version 2.5.4.0), a x86-64 windows pc

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pre release means ‘not ready for general use’, it is designed for developers to find the bugs.

this;

run-detectors: unable to find an interpreter for /mnt/c/Windows/system32/route.exe

tells you that your WSL version is incomplete!
you can’t fix something that hasn’t even been finished by the developer yet.

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I updated my WSL and it broke my Kali too.
At first I kept getting read access errors when I started kali and after trying everything, i finally removed and re-installed Kali again.

But when I installed kex again it would not run usung “kex --esm --sound” so thought there must be another issue.

eventually running this - fixed it:

wsl --uninstall
wsl --install --no-distribution
3 Likes