why does wsl2 wslconfig file not working?

I'm running version 20H2 (OS Build 19042) on windows home edition, i built a linux kernel and im trying to set it up on my machine by configuring the .wslconfig file as follow:

[wsl2]kernel=c:\\wslkernel\\bzImage

everything is at place according to the documentation - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/wsl-config

any ideas what could have gone wrong?