Simple question, I created a WSL2 instance on 8Gb of RAP laptop and immediately saw the memory usage increase to 6Gb with no process taking that much memory (including all process combined) :
Obviously this sounds like to be a VM issue.
I started by trying to delete the VM instance, and even went to try to disable hyperV, but the memory usage problem when no foreground application is running persists.
Is it actually an issue? Unless you notice adverse effects while running WSL2, consider it normal operation. A virtual machine has memory pre-allocated for it, i.e., so much memory is reserved for WSL2, and the remainder is usable by non-VM processes.
However, if you do find problems caused by excessive memory use, then simply shut WSL2, or allocate less memory to it using .wslconfig. For example, to divide RAM 50%/50% between real and virtual processes from your PC's 8 GB RAM,
Create a text file named .wslconfig in your %UserProfile% folder.
Add
[wsl2]
memory=4GB
to the file.
wsl --shutdown, or completely reboot the PC.Now memory should (approximately, because of interpretation of GB decimal or as a power of two) be allocated 4 GB for WSL2, and 4 GB for the real machine.
