Answer by Janac Meena for Reset the password in Ubuntu / Linux Bash in Windows

For those of you who lost the root password, what worked for me, was updating to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS via the Windows Store. Note, the windows store has two distinct options:

1. Ubuntu
2. Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (Pick this one)

To check your current version, run the following as any user:

At command prompt, enter:

cat /etc/*release

You should see a line in the output that says:

DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.01

If you see that, then definitely update to 18.04, and it will prompt you to create new UNIX credentials.