Replace PulseAudio with PipeWire/WirePlumber audio stack in WSLg

[Hengqian Ling (linghengqian)]

• Fixes use Pipewire instead of PA #290 .
• Replace PulseAudio with PipeWire/WirePlumber audio stack in WSLg.

[Hengqian Ling (linghengqian)]

@microsoft-github-policy-service agree

[Ben Hillis (benhillis)]

Triage note (2026-05): Thanks for the substantial work — replacing PulseAudio with PipeWire/WirePlumber is squarely on the roadmap (tracked in #290, with 40+ reactions) and we want to land this. A few things will hold the merge button:

1. We need to validate audio behavior end-to-end against current RDP audio playback and capture paths. The pipewire-wslg-rdp.patch and pipewire-rdp-module.c carry the equivalent of the existing PulseAudio RDP module — verifying parity (sample rates, latency, capture devices, mute/volume integration with Windows) is the bulk of the review.
2. cgmanifest.json will need entries for PipeWire / WirePlumber so Component Governance is happy.
3. An internal buddy build through the full Azure Pipelines flow before merge.

Not asking for changes yet — just setting expectations. If you want to chip away at (1) and (2) preemptively that would help.

[Hengqian Ling (linghengqian)]

I'm glad Microsoft is willing to take on this work, especially since I don't actually have an Azure account to test the corresponding CI files. Should I close this PR?

[Rebecca Turner (iarna)]

especially since I don't actually have an Azure account to test the corresponding CI files

They were suggesting that a microsofty would need to do the full run through, which is why they suggested you could, if you wanted, look at 1 and 2.

They seem to be saying they're gonna do the work to land this one way or the other, so that would imply that no, you should not close it.

(Obviously, as neither a member of this project, nor an MS employee, I'm not speaking for anyone here, just hopefully clarifying things.)