Install Xserver on Windows side:

I will use chocolatey to install it but you may also download X server from the sourceforge page

Run this command in an administrator powershell prompt to install

choco install vcxsrv

In WSL Ubuntu, install the cool-retro-term package using apt:

sudo apt install cool-retro-term

Add this to your .bashrc file so WSL knows the address of the Xserver

I found this method to set DISPLAY to be the most robust as it works even when your .wslconf doesn’t have generateResolvConf=true and when you are using a custom DNS server. The previous method I was using to set DISPLAY would use the wrong address with my setup.

export DISPLAY=$(ip route list default | awk '{print $3}'):0

Now when you run cool-retro-term you should get a window!

Making a shortcut to start cool-retro-term is annoying since if you try to run it directly from a commandline in Windows, you will likely get this error (I also get this error when specifying the DISPLAY parameter in the commandline):

C:\Users\Peter>bash -c cool-retro-term
qt.qpa.xcb: could not connect to display
qt.qpa.plugin: Could not load the Qt platform plugin "xcb" in "" even though it was found.
This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

Available platform plugins are: eglfs, linuxfb, minimal, minimalegl, offscreen, vnc, xcb.

This will work, I think because it opens a login shell.

bash -c "bash --rcfile <(echo '. ~/.bashrc; cool-retro-term; exit')"

Now wrap it in a vbs script to hide the cmd.exe window from appearing:

Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objShell.Run "%comspec% /c start /B """" bash -c ""bash --rcfile <(echo '. ~/.bashrc; cool-retro-term -p DEFAULT_PROFILE; exit')""", 0 'Hide

And call this from a shortcut’s target field:

C:\Windows\System32\wscript.exe "C:\YOUR_PATH_HERE\cool-retro-term.vbs"

Congratulations, when you click the shortcut you should get a cool-retro-term window without any other windows being spawned!