"delete the VM, create a new one, reverse the process.

   $ tar -cxf /mnt/c/Temp/home-backup.tgz -C $HOME"

That's not going to bring much joy.

You operate a little cleaner than I do- there are invariably things that end up in /usr/local/bin..

Still, thanks for the process you use.

My wsl is pretty long lived now, through quite a few ubuntu upgrades and installations of stuff that I probably no longer need.