Asbru-CM-Runner is an application that runs the really great SSH client Asbru-CM in Windows even though it is a Linux-only application. Asbru-CM-Runner does not leave a console window open and runs in the background. It works by using WSL to launch Asbru-CM.

If you are not using WSLg, you will need to install the Windows X Window Manager Xming If you are using WSLg, Asbru-CM-Runner will try to automatically detect this by looking for C:\Windows\System32\wslg.exe and will not require or attempt to run XMing.

1. (Without WSLg) Install Xming follow the prompts and run it. You should see the XMing icon in the system tray that indicates that it is running in the bacground.
2. Install a Linux distro in WSL: If you haven't done so already, install a Linux distro in WSL. The latest instructions from Microsoft suggest that you open a Powershell window and run wsl --install. I had to specify Ubuntu as my distro by doing wsl --install -d ubuntu and follow the prompts including creating the user account. When you get to a bash prompt, do not close it.
3. Make sure Asbru-CM works when you manually run it
   • (Without WSLg) Run Xming if it's not running already. The app icon should appear in the system tray at the bottom right.
   • Open an Ubuntu shell prompt from the Windows menu if it is not open already.
   • (Without WSLg) Run the command export DISPLAY=:0 to redirect the user interface to XMing.
   • Install ASbru-CM in WSL: Run sudo curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/asbru-cm/release/cfg/setup/bash.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash && sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y asbru-cm
   • Run asbru-cm & and make sure that Asbru starts correctly. Once the main Asbru-CM window loads, you can close Asbru-CM.

• Bash: Asbru-CM-Runner will look for bash.exe in the default location (C:\Windows\system32\bash.exe). If you want to specify a different location for bash.exe, you can use the command line argument --bashPath=C:\somefolder\bash.exe. Please note that if the path has spaces, you must wrap it in quotation marks like this: --bashPath="C:\some folder\bash.exe". This path must end in bash.exe or it will be ignored.
• XMing (No WSLg only): Asbru-CM-Runner will look for xming.exe in the default location (C:\Program Files (x86)\Xming\xming.exe). If you want to change this location, you can use the command line argument --xmingPath=C:\somefolder\Xming\xming.exe. Please note that if the path has spaces, you must wrap them in quotation marks. This path must end in xming.exe or it will be ignored.
• Force WSLg mode: Asbru-CM-Runner will try to automatically detect if WSLg is avaialable by looking for the binary wslg.exe in C:\Windows\System32\wslg.exe. If this does not automatically detect WSLg, you can force WSLg mode this by providing the command line argument --skip-xming=true;

If you installed Docker Desktop before installing WSL for the first time, then you may run into a situation where running wsl or bash simply does nothing. This happens because docker-desktop-data is the default WSL container instead of Ubuntu or whichever distro you installed.

To fix this, run the command wsl --list --all --verbose to list all WSL containers which should show output similar to this:

NAME                   STATE           VERSION
* docker-desktop       Stopped         2
docker-desktop-data    Stopped         2
Ubuntu                 Stopped         1

The output shows that docker-desktop is the default container because it has an asterick next to it. To fix this, set the default container to Ubuntu:

wsl --set-default Ubuntu

Run the above command wsl --list --all --verbose again to verify that Ubuntu is now the default container.

NAME                   STATE           VERSION
docker-desktop         Stopped         2
docker-desktop-data    Stopped         2
*Ubuntu                Stopped         1

Solution credit goes to https://superuser.com/questions/1661596/wsl-doesnt-want-to-launch