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in WSL2 with sparse vhd the storage usage does not shrink automatically, cannot compact it anymore manually

Kocsis, Szilard Gyorgy 10 Reputation points
2024-02-06T12:52:30.3233333+00:00

I have 22H2 build 19045.3930 windows 10
WSL2 and I converted my vhd to be sparse once the feature was available to let it shrink on its own. However it does not seem to shrink when when I free up space and to make matters worse I cannot compress it manually any more either

optimize-vhd -Path ext4.vhdx -Mode full
gives
Error: 'The requested operation could not be completed due to a virtual disk system limitation. Virtual hard disk files must be uncompressed and unencrypted and must not be sparse.'.

Questions:
How to trigger sparse vhd to unclaim space as it was promised in the feature?
How to do manual shink with the sparse vhd if the above does not work?

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-02-07T04:35:26.12+00:00

    Hi Kocsis, Szilard Gyorgy,

    Please make sure that sparseVhd is set to true in the "[experimental]" section in your .wslconfig file. If the VHD is not newly created, you can set your existing distros to be sparse by running

    wsl --manage <distro> --set-sparse <true/false>

    https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/windows-subsystem-for-linux-september-2023-update/

    Best Regards,

    Ian Xue

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