System freeze at manufacturer logo (No boot) after installing WSL and Virtual Machine Platform on Windows 11

[Shubham-py404]

Windows Version

Cannot check exact build (Windows 11). System is completely unable to boot into the OS to run cmd.exe /c ver

WSL Version

Cannot check exact version. Installed the latest version from the Microsoft Store just before the system crashed.

Are you using WSL 1 or WSL 2?

• WSL 2
• WSL 1

Kernel Version

Cannot check. System does not boot

Distro Version

Ubuntu (Latest from Microsoft Store)

Other Software

Hardware: Dell Vostro 3530, Intel Core i5 13th Gen, 8GB RAM.
Windows Features involved: Virtual Machine Platform, Windows Hypervisor Platform.

Repro Steps

Had an older, corrupted installation of WSL where the terminal would instantly pop up and close upon opening.
Attempted to clean up the broken installation by forcefully disabling legacy WSL and VirtualMachinePlatform features via PowerShell (dism and Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature).
Also removed the Lxss registry key to clear previous corrupted installation paths.
Installed the modern "Windows Subsystem for Linux" and "Ubuntu" apps directly from the Microsoft Store.
The installation completed 100% and prompted a system restart to apply the features.
Upon restart, the system freezes entirely at the Dell manufacturer POST logo. The Windows loading circle never appears.
Issue persists even after running Dell hardware diagnostics (which all pass) and attempting to repair the bootloader via Dell OS Recovery. The system only freezes when Virtualization features attempt to initialize the WSL hypervisor during boot.

Expected Behavior

Windows 11 should boot normally after installing WSL and enabling the necessary Virtual Machine Platform features, allowing access to the Ubuntu terminal.

Actual Behavior

The system hard-freezes at the BIOS POST screen (Dell logo) before the Windows Boot Manager can even begin loading the OS. The Windows loading animation never starts. The system is completely stuck in a pre-boot state due to the pending WSL/Virtualization update.

Diagnostic Logs

Cannot gather Feedback Hub or WSL networking logs because Windows 11 is completely inaccessible.

[github-actions]

Logs are required for review from WSL team

If this a feature request, please reply with '/feature'. If this is a question, reply with '/question'.
Otherwise, please attach logs by following the instructions below, your issue will not be reviewed unless they are added. These logs will help us understand what is going on in your machine.

How to collect WSL logs

Download and execute collect-wsl-logs.ps1 in an administrative powershell prompt:

Invoke-WebRequest -UseBasicParsing "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/microsoft/WSL/master/diagnostics/collect-wsl-logs.ps1" -OutFile collect-wsl-logs.ps1
Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force
.\collect-wsl-logs.ps1

The script will output the path of the log file once done.

If this is a networking issue, please use .\collect-wsl-logs.ps1 -LogProfile networking instead, following the instructions in Collect WSL logs for networking issues

Once completed please upload the output files to this GitHub issue.

See Collect WSL logs (recommended method).

If you choose to email these logs instead of attaching them to the bug, please send them to wsl-gh-logs@microsoft.com with the GitHub issue number in the subject, and include a link to your GitHub issue comment in the message body, and reply with '/emailed-logs'.

[Shubham-py404]

/question

[github-actions]

Diagnostic information

Found '/question', adding tag 'question'

[Shubham-py404]

Update: Boot Freeze Issue RESOLVED

Status: The system freeze at Dell POST logo is now resolved.

Resolution: Used Dell recovery media + Windows System Restore to recover the system and regain access to Windows 11. The boot freeze issue no longer occurs.

However, a new issue has emerged:

Even after the boot freeze was resolved, WSL 2 / Ubuntu is still not functioning properly on this machine. This appears to be a separate problem—the original issue was that I had a corrupted WSL installation (terminal would instantly pop up and close). When I attempted to clean it up and reinstall, it triggered the boot freeze.

Now that Windows is recoverable:

• I have completely removed all WSL traces and disabled all related Windows features (Virtual Machine Platform, Windows Hypervisor Platform, Secure Boot is off)
• WSL never worked properly, even before the boot freeze occurred

[BugHe]

I had about the same issue on Win11pro×64 [Version 10.0.26200.8037]:

1. Already after enabling WSL in the system, a reboot was required; but then, Windows cannot start anymore and the automatic repair doesn't work. From there, I could go back to the last restore point (this was a few times reproducible).
2. Command wsl -l revealed that no WSL was installed and suggested to install it. This works, then wsl --update was required, what worked, too. However, afterwards Windows again could not start anymore (exactly as above).
3. After a few more trials, I could install ubuntu-24.04, but then once more Windows could not start anymore (as above).
4. WSL repair hints found on Github didn't work either; at the end, I had to restore the whole system from the last, by luck recent WindowsImageBackup.

---

Obviously, WSL is totally incompatible with my hardware:
Microsoft Windows 11 Pro [10.0.26200 Build 26200]
ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. [TUF GAMING Z490-PLUS (WI-FI)]
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700 CPU @ 2.90GHz, 2904 MHz, 8 Kern(e), 16 logische(r) Prozessor(en)
BIOS-Version/-Datum American Megatrends Inc. 2602, 20.1.2022
SMBIOS-Version 3.2
Version des eingebetteten Controllers 255.255
BIOS-Modus UEFI
Sicherer Startzustand Ein
Intel Virtualisation Technology enabled.

NB: I can run Ubuntu 24.04 on VirtualBox, but sometimes the Ubuntu start obviously hangs; then I just have to kill the VirtualBox process with the Task Manager and start Ubuntu again (this time this works correctly). This problem is the reason why I wanted to test WSL.