WSL bash.exe patcher

Patch Windows Subsystem for Linux's ("Ubuntu on Windows") bash.exe to execute arbitrary Linux executables from the WSL filesystem

Usage

Supply the tool with the path to the original bash.exe (C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe by default) and give it the absolute path to a Linux ELF executable (e.g. /bin/zsh). You may optionally specify a name for the generated wrapper binary (e.g. --output zsh.exe).

The tool will then replace the call to /bin/bash with your custom binary and write a new exe file to the location you specified (default is launcher.exe) which you can run from Windows.

Full, working example:

$ wsl-bashexe-patcher.py /mnt/c/Windows/System32/bash.exe /bin/zsh --output zsh.exe

Limitations

• The path to the Linux executable may not exceed 16 characters
• The script may or may not work with future versions of Windows 10 and bash.exe
• If you execute this script from within a windows command prompt you may not be able to open the default bash.exe (not sure why, maybe Windows File Protection has something to do with this). Just copy bash.exe from its default location (C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe) to somewhere else and use that path instead