Upgrade Ubuntu to 16.04 in Windows 10 Creators Update

If you have configured the Ubuntu Bash Shell on Windows 10 and then received the Windows 10 Creators Update, your Ubuntu Bash Shell will not be upgraded automatically. To review, the Ubuntu Bash Shell on Windows 10 is configured to run Ubuntu 14.04. But with the Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft has upgraded the Ubuntu Bash Shell to run Ubuntu 16.04.

So after you receive the Windows 10 Creators Update, you will want to upgrade the Ubuntu Bash Shell to the most recent Ubuntu 16.04 release.

Which Version of Ubuntu am I running?

It's easy to check whether or not you need to upgrade the Ubuntu Bash Shell on Windows 10. Just open a Bash window and run the following command:

lsb_release -a

You should see output similar to the following:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS
Release:        14.04
Codename:       trusty

Upgrade Ubuntu With do-release-upgrade

The easiest way to upgrade the Ubuntu Bash Shell on Windows 10 to Ubuntu 16.04 is to perform an upgrade command from the Bash shell command line:

sudo do-release-upgrade

Be aware that the upgrade process will take some time. Also, you will most likely be asked several questions along the way so make sure to pay attention to the upgrade process once it begins.

Once the upgrade process has completed, you should see something like the following:

I pressed y to restart the system but it actually did nothing. So I would suggest that you can just press N when prompted to restart.

If you run lsb_release -a again, you should see output similar to the following:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release:        16.04
Codename:       xenial