According to the Windows Linux Subsystem docs, users should be able to execute Windows applications out of the box in WLS bash. However, when I follow the same steps on my machine, I get an error.
$ /mnt/c/Windows/System32/notepad.exe
bash: /mnt/c/Windows/System32/notepad.exe: cannot execute binary file: Exec format error
I'm using Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (10.0.14393 Build 14393) with Windows Linux Subsystem enabled, on a 13" mid-2013 MacBook Air.
Bash configuration, e.g. .bashrc, .bash_profile, and a few aliases in .bashrc.d: https://github.com/mcandre/dotfiles