Interop between Windows and Bash

Windows 10 Insider build #14951 has just landed and includes a very exciting new feature that we know you’re going to love: Bash <–> Windows Interop!

Many of you have been asking for this capability for quite a while, and now it’s finally here! Starting with build #14951, you can:

• Call Windows executables from within Bash
• Capture output from Linux executables/scripts from Windows

Let’s take a closer look at these scenarios:

Call Windows executables from within Bash

From within a Bash/WSL console can invoke Windows executables by specifying the full path to the executable file, along with its .exe extension:

To make calling Windows executables more convenient, you can add folders containing commonly used tools to your Bash path, allowing you to invoke executables within these folders by just typing the executable’s name (and .exe extension):

Alternatively, you can create aliases to commonly used tools:

Notes:

1. The team are working on providing ways to incorporate some/all of your Windows environment path into the Bash path. Stay tuned for more news on this feature in future releases
2. When you close your last open Bash session your temporary Path changes, etc. will be lost. To make these changes available to all Bash sessions, add them to your .bashrc, e.g.:

   export PATH=$PATH:/mnt/c/Windows/System32

So what can you do with this new-found capability to invoke Windows executables from within Bash? Common scenarios include:

• Invoke build tools like MSBuild to automate your build/CI system/processes (see above)
• Launch Windows tools & IDE’s like Notepad, Visual Studio / VSCode / Sublime / Notepad++ / etc. to edit files & projects
  
• Execute .bat/.cmd scripts by calling cmd.exe /C ... :

Capturing Bash output from Windows

As useful as it is to invoke Windows executables from within Bash, it’s also incredibly useful to invoke Linux applications and tools from Windows, and capture and process their output in Windows apps.

In the example below, we’ll call bash.exe -c ... to return a list the default Linux user’s root folder and see how many sub folders contain the string “sr” using PowerShell’s select-string cmdlet:

To learn more about how Bash <–> Windows interop works, be sure to read and/or watch the accompanying blog and video where Ben Hillis takes Seth Juarez on a tour of this amazing new feature’s internal workings!

Stay tuned for more Windows 10 command-line coolness in the coming weeks 😉

Rich, on behalf of the Bash/WSL and Console teams.