WSL Edition

Installing ParrotOS on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

Compatible with the latest versions of Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Currently, only the Core Edition is available. A complete Security Edition will probably be released in the future.

Anyway, any tool from the Security Edition can be installed using apt.

Installing WSL

If you already have WSL installed on your machine, you can skip this section.

Open up a Powershell/Terminal as administrator (Right click -> Run As Administrator), and type wsl --install.

If you see help text, that means you have WSL already installed, otherwise wait for the install to finish.

Running ParrotOS WSL

Manual Install

Download the .wsl file containing the needed files from the ParrotOS website.

Double click parrot-core_6.4.wsl and an installation window will pop up.

Now, enter your username and password for your user account.

Your WSL "Hard Drive" will be created as a .vdhx in the folder you create the launcher from.

All updates can be performed via a standard apt upgrade/update. However, if you wish to rerun the installer, you must run wsl --unregister parrot, and rerun the .wsl

Congrats, you now have a working ParrotOS WSL instance!

Microsoft Store

Coming soon...

Troubleshooting

Packages requiring SystemD(i.e. Powershell Empire) are not working on default installs.

This can be fixed however, by editing /etc/wsl.conf and adding

[boot]
systemd=true

And restarting your wsl instance.

Unknown Issues

Please open an issue in The WSL Gitlab Project for any bugs you encounter.