WSL Update Failed with 1618
Running wsl --update in an administrative PowerShell terminal is the standard way to update the Windows Subsystem for Linux kernel and user-mode packages. However, on machines running active background updates, scheduled software deployments, or incomplete reboots, the update process can terminate immediately with exit code 1618 and error code Wsl/UpdatePackage/0x80070652. This error occurs because the modern decoupled WSL package installs via the Windows Installer engine (msiexec.exe). Windows Installer allows only one active installation transaction across the entire operating system. When another process holds the global installer mutex, WSL cannot start its transaction and exits with a Win32 installation conflict. ...