microsoft / microsoft/WSL

winget upgrade Microsoft.WSL fails with error 0x80073d28 instead of triggering UAC prompt

Open
#41,645 6 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Dominant language
C++
Stars
33.7k
Forks
1.8k
Avg merge
3d 17h
Merged PRs (30d)
116

Description

### Windows Version

10.0.26100.8875

### WSL Version

2.7.11.0 upgrading to 2.7.13

### Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

- [x] WSL 2
- [ ] WSL 1

### Kernel Version

6.18.33.2-2

### Distro Version

N/A (Package upgrade issue via WinGet)

### Other Software

Windows Package Manager (winget)

### Repro Steps

1. Open a standard (non-elevated/unprivileged) PowerShell terminal.
2. Run winget upgrade Microsoft.WSL.
3. Observe the installer start progress.

### Expected Behavior

winget prompts a User Account Control (UAC) elevation request to allow administrator privileges for the installation to proceed, matching previous versions and standard system app upgrade behavior.

### Actual Behavior

The installer fails immediately at 1% progress without triggering a UAC prompt, outputting the following error:
`Installer failed with exit code: 0x80073d28 : The package installation failed because administrator privileges are required. Please contact an administrator to install this package.`

### Diagnostic Logs

UAC is set to Always Notify

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Reproduce the failure from a standard, non-elevated PowerShell terminal with `winget upgrade Microsoft.WSL`, using the reported WSL versions and UAC setting. Compare the observed 0x80073d28 failure with the expected UAC prompt; done means the upgrade requests elevation and proceeds successfully.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
powershell
Domain
operating-systems
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
38/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.