Why does my WSL Ubuntu point to a different Python Version?

Question

This is the first time I have installed Ubuntu and Python in my Windows laptop, and upon checking, it seems that my Python version is 3.8.5.

python3 --version

Ubuntu WSL

However, when I check my cmd, and run

python --version

I'm getting 3.7.9. Just curious as to what the difference is as I don't remember installing 3.8.5

CMD

Answer 1

Because these are different pythons.

Try to run

> where python

You'll probably get something like

C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\python.exe
C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\python.exe

And then run

$ which python3

inside your WSL. You may get

/usr/bin/python3

which is different from Widows' executable. WSL has its own filesystem which doesn't share files with the parent system and python executables also aren't shared.