microsoft / microsoft/WSL

Confusing help text for --unregister and --terminate arguments

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feature
Dominant language
C++
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Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
The shortened help text provided within wsl --help for the --unregister and --terminate arguments are confusing to many users and do not provide enough information to disambiguate between the 2 arguments, nor do they really simply describe what actions they perform. Instead, the current help text merely reiterates what the argument name is! This is inadequate and not helpful:

    --terminate, -t <Distro>
        Terminates the specified distribution.

    --unregister <Distro>
        Unregisters the distribution.

Describe the solution you'd like
Provide help text that does not simply repeat the argument name but instead provides a well crafted help sentence that describes the action that each argument performs. Some of this helpful text can be borrowed from the official docs here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config#unregister-and-reinstall-a-distribution

Replacement Suggestion:

    --terminate, -t <Distro>
        Immediately terminates a specified running distribution.

    --unregister <Distro>
        Uninstalls the specified distribution and deletes all data, settings, software associated with it.

Describe alternatives you've considered
A clear and concise description of any alternative solutions or features you've considered.

Additional context
Add any other context or screenshots about the feature request here.

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

Start at the help-text definition exposed by wsl --help, focusing on the --terminate and --unregister entries. Update both descriptions to explain their actions without repeating the option names, then verify that wsl --help shows the revised wording.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
cpp
Domain
cli
Issue type
Documentation
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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