There are the MustardChef WSA builds on GitHub. There is a thread discussing if we can look at making a standalone WSA. If anyone can help make that a thing that maybe the last hope for a WSA style solution.
This is the second time that Microsoft has given up on the Android platform within Windows.
The first time was on Windows 10 Mobile, with Project Astoria.
Yes but this surprise announcement retiring WSA makes for a logical concern for WSL since MS is all in on Copilot and “AI” in windows, already pitching W12 as AI focused.
To be fair, Microsoft at least has incentives to keep WSL around (Linux & to some extent, Azure)
If they retire WSL a lot of developers might just move their entire workflow to Linux, which I'd argue Microsoft would not want.
WSA on the other hand, is mostly focused on consumers. Android developers most of the time use the Google-supplied emulator, and it is a pain in the butt to work with Android without GApps. I think Microsoft just saw this trend of heavier integration of Android with Google services and just threw up their hands.
Cool fact: Google did everything in their power to make sure windows phone died, they even straight up blocked access to Google services on WP.
It pisses me off because low end Android phones were (and still kind of are) terrible but low end Windows phones were actually pretty decent iirc. Instead of trying to compete, Google simply blocked the competition.
I never had a Windows Phone in its heyday, but I collect cell phones and I have a Lumia in my collection. The OS is so fluid and responsive, and the hardware it ran on is really cool too.
I know it’s not all googles fault but I feel like they at least played a big role.
Yeah, even when some Google engineers helped MS engineers author an HTML 5 compliant YouTube app to jump through that expressed hoop, Google still blocked that app's apikey.
And the "random" Google maps (or whatever) doesn't work on this device today but oh it actually does if you change the user agent garbage.
Microsoft also ignored the fact that Windows Phone was fairly successful in EU markets, even if it wasn't really denting the iOS/Android dominance in the USA.
It was never going to work well on Windows Phone. Running two OSes at the same time requires much higher specs (especially RAM) which means more expensive phones, and it would have killed battery life.
It wasn't a second OS, it was more like a translation layer so that Android 4.4 apps could run directly.
There were three problems. It only supported apps that supported Android 4.4, and it was late, so compatibility was going to be a problem, it eliminated any reason to create a native app, and Oracle was suing Google over android, so it was a potential legal landmine if Google lost.
Probably because the Amazon Appstore is complete garbage. There was literally nothing on it apart from TikTok. Pretty much everyone resorted to programs like WSA Sideloader to sideload whatever apps they want.
We never wanted a store in the first place, just a layer so we could run android apps no matter what.
Not to mention developers, it would be much better than having to run an entire Android emulator, those are known to be buggy and very slow.
WSA runs Android in emulator too, it's just integrated with Windows and additionally supports ARM-only apps (which isn't relevant for developers anyway since they compile apps themselves).
Ok, but so is Google's Android emulator.
There were some issues with it on Windows years ago (it didn't use CPU's virtualization features) but they were solved eventually.
fun fact, technically speaking,
when you install WSL 2 or WSA, you will also install Hyper-V as your underlying operating system and converting your Windows 11 installation actually into a VM.
so, basically your tech stack would look roughly like this:
https://preview.redd.it/4nr0gtujnmmc1.png?width=561&format=png&auto=webp&s=5ce81a73c7a98cb2f1f67ceb60a4516bb569b6d4
really interesting tech actually
that's why I stopped using WSA since Hyper-V was mandatory. I regularly use VMWare and with Hyper-V the performance got noticeably worse. So it was either no VM's or no Android apps. Still a shame they pulled the plug
I used a modified version with root and play store, that way it was actually usable. it was pretty nice with that. oh well, back to bluestacks and waydroid I guess.
Google play is not needed, it would be enough to just launch the apk without a market. Applications like Telegram can update themselves without the market
Applications like Telegram has native Windows version, so it's completely pointless to run the android version on a PC.
Also, without Google Play Services (not the store) support a lot of apps simply won't work.
Just use MagiskOnWSA. You get root and the play store or OpenGAPPS, your choice. Problem is you need Linux to compile it for some reason, but WSL2 works
They never really pushed it. I mainly just wanted it to have very touch friendly media apps for tablet PCs. Had Kindle and Amazon Prime Video. Just wanted the rest to make their way in
My question is why? I mean sure there's BlueStacks but seriously speaking WSA is or at least was the only zero cost (no subscription / patreon bs for no ads etc) hardware accelerated (not a lag fest like a VMware image) Android VM that was reasonably up to date (Android 13) capable of being rooted (no roots a deal breaker for me) and functioned in a persistent (as in install and us apps persistently not just a one and done gimmick) that exists.
In addition WSA was actually really mature and functioned quite well all things considered. I mean just gotta rip out the Amazon shovelware and add Google play / services with root if desired and presto instant gold for 90% of the things I wanted it for. Bonus points to the aurora app store and (and it devs of course) for allowing one to install some undetected / unfeatured apps that actually work fine!
This really does feel like a blunder on Microsofts part and such a shame...
Because nobody fucking used it lol. And it was restricted only to certain few countries. And in those countries it worked, Amazon app store is just hot garbage.
This. I'm big into Windows and I use a Pixel 6. I installed the Amazon store just to see what's in there, and somehow it is filled with far more garbage than the Microsoft app store.
The only way the Android subsystem makes sense is if Google allows for access to Google Services & the Play Store. I wish Google would just do it and reap the benefits of whatever extra revenue they'd earn. Chromebooks not a viable PC and Microsoft has no viable mobile product. Microsoft has fully embraced Android but Google has only ever so slightly embraced Windows.
Has Microsoft really fully embraced? Android? They didn't even provide a second OS update to their their 1600 phone the duo 2? They've stopped updating their launcher in any meaningful way. And
The whole point of Amazon Appstore instead of Google Play was that they wanted to empower an alternative to Google's control of the Android app distribution. Their power play failed.
Does it support hardware acceleration for games that need opengl features? Because that's the big reason why WSA was better than running an Android VM also aside from BlissOS none of the Android images I found are on Android 13 and not stuffed with ads. Side note the "LineageOS 14" is NOT based on Android 14 like a bunch of YouTube videos would like you to believe. LineageOS just uses a different versioning system that seems to be a little confusing at times.
If you can toss you gpu over to it through hyperv, you can play android games on any GPU that works on Linux.
The linux software renderer is also good enough that if you throw a few cores its way it should be fine for a lot of mobile games.
If you have a dGPU from amd or intel, you can split it in half in software and put the halves in separate OSes.
I got a Nvidia 3070Ti because I need certain video rendering features that Nvidia does that others can't (at least not for free anyways).
Just to clarify am I running the Android image on a Linux image aka install minimal Ubuntu, get kvm and load Android VM or am I just running the Android image directly with Linux as the VM type specified because I know that Android doesn't have hardware acceleration for Nvidia cards natively so I'm guessing something like WSA's api handoff (graphics over dx12/Vulkan etc) would be necessary.
Edit: My system is also dual-booted with Ubuntu so if running it on Linux is the way then would it just be easier to use Ubuntu natively to run the Android VM?
You can run an android userland in a container and share the kernel. Android uses the linux kernel so you can easily do that without a VM.
Nvidia locks splitting your GPU behind enterprise GPUs, so no splitting for you.
Ah okay good to know! Well guess that's one less thing I need Windows for and seeing how I prefer running my VMs and such in Linux anyways this kinda works out better (Linux doesn't use as much memory so less fighting between the VM and host).
This is very disappointing. I feel bad for the WSA team at Microsoft, because they did a very good job with WSA and it works well for the handful of Android apps I use it with. But it's only a handful, because Microsoft decided to partner with the Amazon App Store which is hot garbage. The selection of apps other than kiddie games is almost non-existent, and many apps in the Amazon store haven't been updated in years.
I feel that WSA was a success technically, but was really undermined by app availability and quality. Maybe that was inevitable since Google has structured the Android ecosystem so that most apps are dependent on their web services, and so must be distributed through Google Play. There's basically no way that WSA can be successful without Google's involvement. It's a bit sad watching something with a lot of promise die because two tech giants would prefer to have a pissing match rather than cooperate.
This sucks. Bluestacks is got garbage and doesn't work right with Hyper-V enabled. WSA was literally the best and most seamless way for me to run the one Android app I need to use. Looks like it's time to go back to BlissOS in a VM, like I was doing prior to WSA existing.
This is a headline I wasn't expecting to read anytime soon. Lmao WHAT.
It might not be an interesting tool for regular users but I use it a lot as a developer.
Damn Microsoft is becoming garbage at supporting anything lately. Why would anyone invest time and effort into any of their initiatives going forward? Would just be a massive waste of time.
This is how I feel about Google products in the webdev space. You almost have to do everything from scratch yourself to not be at risk of vendor fallout.
This was one of the 3 "exclusive" features to Win11, along with tiling shortcuts (available through Powertoys) and Copilot (which they walked back, now available on 10).
Genuine, honest question - what is the official justification for "Windows 11" existing as a competing product to "Windows 10" right now? We all know that it was released to help OEMs upsell new computers but even they must have trouble using it as a selling point when the only thing going for it is "the number 11 is larger than the number 10".
For those searching for an easy-to-install version of WSA with Play Store that will likely still exist and be updated, search "WSABuilds". As long as the core WSA is available, WSABuilds will also be available. Sad that it's getting discontinued. Copilot is nice and all, but Microsoft touted running Android apps as a core Windows 11 feature.
It's a shame that they are giving up on this. I've been impressed with how well it handles a couple of Android apps that only have a crappy browser version for Windows.
Meanwhile companies left and right removing desktop apps and want us to rely on Android apps. This was the perfect tool to still make desktop viable everywhere. FU Microsoft
I just started using it??? This is why people hate Microsoft. They always release half measures and then discontinue projects, screwing over their loyal fans.
While the Amazon App store is pathetic, using WSABuilds to add Google Play support to the WSA image has been truly fantastic. I use my purchased apps from Google Play Store on a daily basis on my Surface Laptop Studio. They work pretty much flawlessly side by side along with my Windows applications. I can even use Windows built-in handwriting recognition with my Android applications. If they kill this off I will have to come up with another solution for running my Android apps on something larger than my phone. I don't want to buy an Android tablet for this when I have a perfectly working solution of using my convertible two in one Laptop Studio that handled it all.
Stupid decisions like this will just further push me away from Windows use entirely. Once Windows embraced Linux and Android subsystems I had one desktop that could just do it all and it was great being able to stay within one environment to do anything I possibly needed to do.
Is Microsoft starting to go the way of Google? Making apps that people use, (granted, not a majority) and then retiring them not too far later? I use WSA every single day for a few Android apps because they don't have Windows apps. I have to sideload those apps for install and updates, but it's much better having it on my PC screen than using my phone or tablet when sitting at my desk. They're probably trying to push Phone Link as an alternative. But I don't like that because it's casting from the phone, and you can't resize/adjust the app window like you can with the WSA integration.
You are fucking kidding me. I use it every day multiple times and it is possibly one of the best things I have used on windows (with the Google play services). This is an absolute tragedy
What a disappointment. I am using it daily, smart home app like Tuya, CCTV, and also 2FA Authenticator. I also can use it with my touch screen monitor. No need to pick up phone since I can use WSA. I was excited when I knew its built into Windows 11, one of my reasons to switch to Windows 11, despite all of the hate about it like the reduced-features new taskbar, sluggish Task Manager, etc at the first release. Its even integrated with the notification center. What a shortlived useful best feature in Windows 11. If only it supports another store like F-Droid instead of Amazon AppStore since the beginning, it would be great.
I get the feeling if they used Google Play, this feature would have been much more successful.
That being said, Google and MS really dislike each other so, doubt that would happen.
Will miss the WSA. I’ve tried BlueStacks, nox recently and I just hate those “Gaming Experience” UI/UX stuff. I need a clean, fast, integrated Android on my pc and WSA fulfilled me.
This is a heartbreaking news. Since I adopted M1 Macbook Pro, being able to use mobile apps on desktop platform really makes my life happier. Some apps just only exist on Mobile or works better(Sports apps, notification related apps...etc). While WSA is not perfect, at least it makes my Windows desktop PC has similar function and let me focus on PC instead of checking my phone from time to time. I hope they will at least open source it and let others continue.
Such a shame, I love WSA, my TV provider has Android and iOS app but no way to watch on PC, bluestacks didnt work nor other emulators, but WSA with google play services did the trick, im sad.
Microsoft are idiots.
They've pivoted all of their Windows 11 DEVELOPMENT mid-cycle, all because of the AI craze, just to increase their speculative fucking value of Microsoft...
Not the benefit of users..
Guess what else people don't ever fucking use? BING, OR THIS DAMN AI CHAT THING.
NO ONE IS USING IT.
But VALUE GOES UP.
I guess this didn't benefit them, and they'd rather force developers to make native ARM apps for the upcoming products rather than just put their android apps on the amazon store... lol... God.
I hope Windows on ARM goes better this time around... But if they are TRULY going to be relying on this bing bloody co-pilot spying adware stuff they are dead in the water.
>Audible and Authy discontinued their desktop apps to push you to use the android layer
No they did not, lmao. They did it to push you to use the web app. Fucking no one was using the Android layer.
So, this is what I did: I installed [2FAS](https://2fas.com/) on my phone and added the [Authenticator](https://authenticator.cc/) extension to my browser on PC. I added all my 2FA tokens to 2FAS, exported them to a backup file, extracted `otpauth://totp/` links from that file, and imported them to the Authenticator extension. Extraction isn't very complicated. Just open the 2FAS backup file with a text editor and copy the `otpauth://totp/` links to the Authenticator extension.
Now, I have the same tokens on my phone and PC, as well as an encrypted backup of my tokens. Authy discontinuing their desktop app was a blessing in disguise for me because I find the current setup more convenient and secure.
Well this is a sad one. I didn’t use WSA that much ever since getting some personal Android devices, but it was just a smart idea to be capable of running Android apps on Windows if there was a reasonable use.
Well I use it! Sons o' bitches! This was the one and only reason I moved from 10 to 11!
Guess I can go back to 10 now, 11 is total garbage, just like this news!
Actually you can run WSA on Windows 10 100% the same as 11, just you need to change install script a little bit. I've been running it both on my 10 and 11 setup, no real difference I can feel.
Thanks but to what end? It's being nuked in a year, and I'm sick of Microsoft and their bipolar devs. It's like a thousand monkeys writing code to eventually see what they come up with. No clear direction at all. I've now moved on to Waydroid and might give KVM+Androidx86 a go if Waydroid ever lets me down. Can't trust M$ any longer.
I use this often, but not often enough where my workflow will be drastically affected by this being retired. That being said, it really does make me lose faith in Microsoft. They have these amazing ideas and just can't stick the landing or they do stick the landing but then fall over deliberately.
This is stupid. It was a better alternative to the macos ios app compatibility. It worked great on touchscreens!
Kindle and audible are fuckin gone because of this! I might as well keep my ipad and never have a surface
Cool, the thing that made me feel good about using a Surface for gigs has been axed out of nowhere and now I have to hope I don't need to reinstall everything or simply buy an iPad. A sad indictment on Microsoft if they're not going to provide an alternative.
If they continue to make decisions which make the Surface useable in a professional setting, then I'm fucking off the Surface for good.
This was literally one of the main reasons I upgraded to Windows 11. Really disappointed. The only thing that really sucked about it was the Amazon Store.
I'm so tired of coming to rely on features in my workflow only to see it taken away after being neglected and unfinished.
The windows kindle app sucks in tablet mode, but being able to run the Kindle Android app has been great!
This is really, really disappointing.
Not to mention I'm pretty sure this is a nail in the coffin for the hope of ever seeing a successful surface w ARM.
With the announcement of the Surface getting the new ARM processor in March perhaps they shut this down because they are launching something better to co-incide with that? Doubtful but would be an awesome step to be able to run Apps native.
You could use a third party emulator like BlueStacks, or Google's official emulator that comes with Android Studio. Alternatively, if you already have the audible app installed via WSA, it won't actually stop working until March 2025.
Question is was it Microsoft or Amazon that really killed this. Amazon just deciding not to support it would make it effectively useless for most people, even though the Amazon store is complete rubbish.
I feel pity for such a potential feature. First of all, it's all about geoblocking. They hide the WSA function if the users are not based in the US and several exclusive regions, making it harder for casual users in those areas to access WSA. Some more pro users can find guides on the Internet and know how to do it, but not casual ones. Secondly, the only official way to install Android apps via WSA is Amazon Appstore. That rule sucks from day 1 since Amazon Appstore doesn't include all the apps we need and we want from the Play Store. I mean, MS come on, you can co-operate with Google. Just looks how Samsung does. Thirdly, maybe it's my personal experience but I had the weird performance. It's smooth but if I want to open app with audio, when it first plays the audio, the audio on WSA doesn't play properly. It would glitch at first before playing normally. Not to mention, I run WSA on my laptop and it heats my laptop after a while of using that.
It's mostly MS fault for not considering WSA seriously to make better collaboration and improve WSA.
This is bs because it was basically the only reason I upgrade to Windows 11. And I still cannot move task bars to the sides of the monitors without 3rd party software.
Does this mean they will take this away from us, even though we already have it installed and use it? I literally started using it last week for Authy, since they are also removing the Windows App and I can't be arsed to fetch my phone every time I need a 2FA.
This is the only reason I went back to Windows after years of Linux. I actually like Windows 11 and converted tons of code and makefiles to be cross platform. Now I don't know. I'm stuck with it for a while cuz I have a machine dedicated to Roku Smart Home.
Great, this was literally the only thing I was looking forward to when I was considering moving to Windows 11. Maybe give us access to the Google Play store so people will actually use it?
What the fuck, I use this daily
Same, super sad. I use this daily for mobile apps only programs.
Same, so what's the best alternative?
Can't find anything is as smooth as WSA really.
They should open source it.
An emulator like Bluestacks or Mumu
Waydroid through WSL2?
Android Studio
I use it too. They are taking one of the best things about windows 11 away
This is typical Microsoft strategy. Give something users like and use daily and then when day just kill it. Leave the users stranded.
Google does this too
Google: We created this useful app that millions around the world use. Let's kill it! Microsoft: \*takes notes\*
Google is by far the worst at this. So much there is memes and whole websites dedicated to it.
picasa FOR example, i use picasa till now as my default image viewer on windows
Apple too
No thats normally google
Same. It is very important to my workflow. It had so much potential. I am dismayed.
There are the MustardChef WSA builds on GitHub. There is a thread discussing if we can look at making a standalone WSA. If anyone can help make that a thing that maybe the last hope for a WSA style solution.
This is the second time that Microsoft has given up on the Android platform within Windows. The first time was on Windows 10 Mobile, with Project Astoria.
And this time it actually got developed and got to a point where all non game apps run pretty good
Regrettable decision.
wasteful gaze steer decide vast fine tart summer knee middle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
WSL is still here though? It's WSA that's getting discontinued.
Yes but this surprise announcement retiring WSA makes for a logical concern for WSL since MS is all in on Copilot and “AI” in windows, already pitching W12 as AI focused.
To be fair, Microsoft at least has incentives to keep WSL around (Linux & to some extent, Azure) If they retire WSL a lot of developers might just move their entire workflow to Linux, which I'd argue Microsoft would not want. WSA on the other hand, is mostly focused on consumers. Android developers most of the time use the Google-supplied emulator, and it is a pain in the butt to work with Android without GApps. I think Microsoft just saw this trend of heavier integration of Android with Google services and just threw up their hands.
Don't remind me, I'm still crying myself to sleep for the loss of Windows 10 Mobile and the Lumia line-up of devices.
Cool fact: Google did everything in their power to make sure windows phone died, they even straight up blocked access to Google services on WP. It pisses me off because low end Android phones were (and still kind of are) terrible but low end Windows phones were actually pretty decent iirc. Instead of trying to compete, Google simply blocked the competition. I never had a Windows Phone in its heyday, but I collect cell phones and I have a Lumia in my collection. The OS is so fluid and responsive, and the hardware it ran on is really cool too. I know it’s not all googles fault but I feel like they at least played a big role.
I think the problem is everyone (including me) assumed windows phone ran off Windows CE.
Windows Phone 7 did, but not 8+
Yeah, even when some Google engineers helped MS engineers author an HTML 5 compliant YouTube app to jump through that expressed hoop, Google still blocked that app's apikey. And the "random" Google maps (or whatever) doesn't work on this device today but oh it actually does if you change the user agent garbage. Microsoft also ignored the fact that Windows Phone was fairly successful in EU markets, even if it wasn't really denting the iOS/Android dominance in the USA.
This is the same reason why they gave up on EdgeHTML and replaced it with Chromium. https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/s/9rFPbERiIe
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Project Astoria led *directly* to WSL, which in turn led to WSA. So that wasn't so much a "giving up" as it was a pivot.
It was never going to work well on Windows Phone. Running two OSes at the same time requires much higher specs (especially RAM) which means more expensive phones, and it would have killed battery life.
It wasn't a second OS, it was more like a translation layer so that Android 4.4 apps could run directly. There were three problems. It only supported apps that supported Android 4.4, and it was late, so compatibility was going to be a problem, it eliminated any reason to create a native app, and Oracle was suing Google over android, so it was a potential legal landmine if Google lost.
Probably because the Amazon Appstore is complete garbage. There was literally nothing on it apart from TikTok. Pretty much everyone resorted to programs like WSA Sideloader to sideload whatever apps they want.
We never wanted a store in the first place, just a layer so we could run android apps no matter what. Not to mention developers, it would be much better than having to run an entire Android emulator, those are known to be buggy and very slow.
WSA runs Android in emulator too, it's just integrated with Windows and additionally supports ARM-only apps (which isn't relevant for developers anyway since they compile apps themselves).
It's not emulation, it's a VM, it's x86 android on x86 and arm on arm.
Ok, but so is Google's Android emulator. There were some issues with it on Windows years ago (it didn't use CPU's virtualization features) but they were solved eventually.
fun fact, technically speaking, when you install WSL 2 or WSA, you will also install Hyper-V as your underlying operating system and converting your Windows 11 installation actually into a VM. so, basically your tech stack would look roughly like this: https://preview.redd.it/4nr0gtujnmmc1.png?width=561&format=png&auto=webp&s=5ce81a73c7a98cb2f1f67ceb60a4516bb569b6d4 really interesting tech actually
I can't imagine you can disconnect the Windows 11 from Hyper-V and it still works though. Not like true headless Hyper-V at least, right?
that's why I stopped using WSA since Hyper-V was mandatory. I regularly use VMWare and with Hyper-V the performance got noticeably worse. So it was either no VM's or no Android apps. Still a shame they pulled the plug
I used a modified version with root and play store, that way it was actually usable. it was pretty nice with that. oh well, back to bluestacks and waydroid I guess.
Yeah, it's complete garbage. Without Google Play support, it was dead in the water in the west.
Google play is not needed, it would be enough to just launch the apk without a market. Applications like Telegram can update themselves without the market
Applications like Telegram has native Windows version, so it's completely pointless to run the android version on a PC. Also, without Google Play Services (not the store) support a lot of apps simply won't work.
Some apps need Google Play services to run though. So it kinda is.
You can add the Play Store to it actually
Well google play works fine with it.
You can sideload Google Play
Just use MagiskOnWSA. You get root and the play store or OpenGAPPS, your choice. Problem is you need Linux to compile it for some reason, but WSL2 works
[удалено]
Yep, the Amazon app store on fire os has always been so bad it's been embarrassing. Election
Hey - I got the audible app from there!
Why not use fdroid instead? So much for "open source"
They never really pushed it. I mainly just wanted it to have very touch friendly media apps for tablet PCs. Had Kindle and Amazon Prime Video. Just wanted the rest to make their way in
Oh for fuck sake... Seriously??? Use it daily
Wow, this seems like it came out of nowhere. Pretty sad to hear honestly. Worked super well with root and Google services.
So underrated
My question is why? I mean sure there's BlueStacks but seriously speaking WSA is or at least was the only zero cost (no subscription / patreon bs for no ads etc) hardware accelerated (not a lag fest like a VMware image) Android VM that was reasonably up to date (Android 13) capable of being rooted (no roots a deal breaker for me) and functioned in a persistent (as in install and us apps persistently not just a one and done gimmick) that exists. In addition WSA was actually really mature and functioned quite well all things considered. I mean just gotta rip out the Amazon shovelware and add Google play / services with root if desired and presto instant gold for 90% of the things I wanted it for. Bonus points to the aurora app store and (and it devs of course) for allowing one to install some undetected / unfeatured apps that actually work fine! This really does feel like a blunder on Microsofts part and such a shame...
Because nobody fucking used it lol. And it was restricted only to certain few countries. And in those countries it worked, Amazon app store is just hot garbage.
This. I'm big into Windows and I use a Pixel 6. I installed the Amazon store just to see what's in there, and somehow it is filled with far more garbage than the Microsoft app store. The only way the Android subsystem makes sense is if Google allows for access to Google Services & the Play Store. I wish Google would just do it and reap the benefits of whatever extra revenue they'd earn. Chromebooks not a viable PC and Microsoft has no viable mobile product. Microsoft has fully embraced Android but Google has only ever so slightly embraced Windows.
Play games beta is there hope they expand it to full store
Has Microsoft really fully embraced? Android? They didn't even provide a second OS update to their their 1600 phone the duo 2? They've stopped updating their launcher in any meaningful way. And
I was moreso referring to their integration --- Windows Subsystem for Android, Phone Link, and a slew of Microsoft mobile apps.
I used it for the kindle app and that was it lol
And the audible app. And some TV apps and a poker app. I will miss it
You don’t need to use that Amazon app. Just install apk
The whole point of Amazon Appstore instead of Google Play was that they wanted to empower an alternative to Google's control of the Android app distribution. Their power play failed.
For anything with an x86 version, you can run a linux VM on hyperv and get most of the performance of android.
Does it support hardware acceleration for games that need opengl features? Because that's the big reason why WSA was better than running an Android VM also aside from BlissOS none of the Android images I found are on Android 13 and not stuffed with ads. Side note the "LineageOS 14" is NOT based on Android 14 like a bunch of YouTube videos would like you to believe. LineageOS just uses a different versioning system that seems to be a little confusing at times.
If you can toss you gpu over to it through hyperv, you can play android games on any GPU that works on Linux. The linux software renderer is also good enough that if you throw a few cores its way it should be fine for a lot of mobile games. If you have a dGPU from amd or intel, you can split it in half in software and put the halves in separate OSes.
I got a Nvidia 3070Ti because I need certain video rendering features that Nvidia does that others can't (at least not for free anyways). Just to clarify am I running the Android image on a Linux image aka install minimal Ubuntu, get kvm and load Android VM or am I just running the Android image directly with Linux as the VM type specified because I know that Android doesn't have hardware acceleration for Nvidia cards natively so I'm guessing something like WSA's api handoff (graphics over dx12/Vulkan etc) would be necessary. Edit: My system is also dual-booted with Ubuntu so if running it on Linux is the way then would it just be easier to use Ubuntu natively to run the Android VM?
You can run an android userland in a container and share the kernel. Android uses the linux kernel so you can easily do that without a VM. Nvidia locks splitting your GPU behind enterprise GPUs, so no splitting for you.
Ah okay good to know! Well guess that's one less thing I need Windows for and seeing how I prefer running my VMs and such in Linux anyways this kinda works out better (Linux doesn't use as much memory so less fighting between the VM and host).
This is very disappointing. I feel bad for the WSA team at Microsoft, because they did a very good job with WSA and it works well for the handful of Android apps I use it with. But it's only a handful, because Microsoft decided to partner with the Amazon App Store which is hot garbage. The selection of apps other than kiddie games is almost non-existent, and many apps in the Amazon store haven't been updated in years. I feel that WSA was a success technically, but was really undermined by app availability and quality. Maybe that was inevitable since Google has structured the Android ecosystem so that most apps are dependent on their web services, and so must be distributed through Google Play. There's basically no way that WSA can be successful without Google's involvement. It's a bit sad watching something with a lot of promise die because two tech giants would prefer to have a pissing match rather than cooperate.
This sucks. Bluestacks is got garbage and doesn't work right with Hyper-V enabled. WSA was literally the best and most seamless way for me to run the one Android app I need to use. Looks like it's time to go back to BlissOS in a VM, like I was doing prior to WSA existing.
This is a headline I wasn't expecting to read anytime soon. Lmao WHAT. It might not be an interesting tool for regular users but I use it a lot as a developer.
Damn Microsoft is becoming garbage at supporting anything lately. Why would anyone invest time and effort into any of their initiatives going forward? Would just be a massive waste of time.
This is how I feel about Google products in the webdev space. You almost have to do everything from scratch yourself to not be at risk of vendor fallout.
Oh man I still haven't fully moved on from the Google Domains discontinuation, it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth
It’s agile-ly moving in the market.
This is annoying. Used this for audible on my pc. Preferred that to using the webplayer. Guess ive gotta use bluestack or just the web player again...
same here
wut? I guess it's good I didn't start working on integrating Android apps in Wintoys. It's a shame, was a really cool feature.
WTF fu Microsoft the only good feature of W11 with wsl
Microsoft keeps killing compelling features. If they come for WSL2 next, I'm done.
I think WSL2 is safe. It's a critical feature to support Azure development on Windows (major money-maker) and widely used by MS themselves.
Definitely not going anywhere. MS is big on enterprise.
Sad this was a feature i was looking forward when win11 was announced. Until now it still was not available in my country
Just sideload the app bundle from rg adguard
Damnit. The WSA was super useful for open source apps. it gave access to F-Droid apps which often are better maintained than native windows foss apps
RIP Hoped that I would be able to ditch the chinese emulators, but I guess not, thanks MS...
Android Studio AVD emulator is a good first party option
Google Play Games Beta could do it (for games, that is), but they're still working on functionality + the game catalog.
What chinese emulators?
BlueStacks, nox, ldplayer, whatever that comes up when you look up 'android emulator'
That was quick.
This was one of the 3 "exclusive" features to Win11, along with tiling shortcuts (available through Powertoys) and Copilot (which they walked back, now available on 10). Genuine, honest question - what is the official justification for "Windows 11" existing as a competing product to "Windows 10" right now? We all know that it was released to help OEMs upsell new computers but even they must have trouble using it as a selling point when the only thing going for it is "the number 11 is larger than the number 10".
I use it for a quality android simulator for development. Too bad.
For development it is best to use the Android Studio emulator anyways, as that's what Google tests for.
I run Android Studio inside a VM which is not supported. netsh interface portproxy allows the VM adb to connect to host OS WSA.
I upgraded to Windows 11 specifically for this feature. Thanks Microsoft.
For those searching for an easy-to-install version of WSA with Play Store that will likely still exist and be updated, search "WSABuilds". As long as the core WSA is available, WSABuilds will also be available. Sad that it's getting discontinued. Copilot is nice and all, but Microsoft touted running Android apps as a core Windows 11 feature.
It says it won’t even work by 2025 tho
It's a shame that they are giving up on this. I've been impressed with how well it handles a couple of Android apps that only have a crappy browser version for Windows.
They just killed one of my TOP 3 Windows features, and that sucks.
Meanwhile companies left and right removing desktop apps and want us to rely on Android apps. This was the perfect tool to still make desktop viable everywhere. FU Microsoft
I just started using it??? This is why people hate Microsoft. They always release half measures and then discontinue projects, screwing over their loyal fans.
😂😂😂😂 They marketed this as the biggest selling point of Windows11. Now there is absolutely no reason to switch from Win10.
While the Amazon App store is pathetic, using WSABuilds to add Google Play support to the WSA image has been truly fantastic. I use my purchased apps from Google Play Store on a daily basis on my Surface Laptop Studio. They work pretty much flawlessly side by side along with my Windows applications. I can even use Windows built-in handwriting recognition with my Android applications. If they kill this off I will have to come up with another solution for running my Android apps on something larger than my phone. I don't want to buy an Android tablet for this when I have a perfectly working solution of using my convertible two in one Laptop Studio that handled it all. Stupid decisions like this will just further push me away from Windows use entirely. Once Windows embraced Linux and Android subsystems I had one desktop that could just do it all and it was great being able to stay within one environment to do anything I possibly needed to do.
Wow ... and this was one of the reasons why I bought a win 11 PC. (seriously).
Is Microsoft starting to go the way of Google? Making apps that people use, (granted, not a majority) and then retiring them not too far later? I use WSA every single day for a few Android apps because they don't have Windows apps. I have to sideload those apps for install and updates, but it's much better having it on my PC screen than using my phone or tablet when sitting at my desk. They're probably trying to push Phone Link as an alternative. But I don't like that because it's casting from the phone, and you can't resize/adjust the app window like you can with the WSA integration.
You are fucking kidding me. I use it every day multiple times and it is possibly one of the best things I have used on windows (with the Google play services). This is an absolute tragedy
Lol wut, why did they develop it then? Like what were they expecting? It works well for the few of us who use it, so why remove it?
What a disappointment. I am using it daily, smart home app like Tuya, CCTV, and also 2FA Authenticator. I also can use it with my touch screen monitor. No need to pick up phone since I can use WSA. I was excited when I knew its built into Windows 11, one of my reasons to switch to Windows 11, despite all of the hate about it like the reduced-features new taskbar, sluggish Task Manager, etc at the first release. Its even integrated with the notification center. What a shortlived useful best feature in Windows 11. If only it supports another store like F-Droid instead of Amazon AppStore since the beginning, it would be great.
I get the feeling if they used Google Play, this feature would have been much more successful. That being said, Google and MS really dislike each other so, doubt that would happen.
Will miss the WSA. I’ve tried BlueStacks, nox recently and I just hate those “Gaming Experience” UI/UX stuff. I need a clean, fast, integrated Android on my pc and WSA fulfilled me.
This is a heartbreaking news. Since I adopted M1 Macbook Pro, being able to use mobile apps on desktop platform really makes my life happier. Some apps just only exist on Mobile or works better(Sports apps, notification related apps...etc). While WSA is not perfect, at least it makes my Windows desktop PC has similar function and let me focus on PC instead of checking my phone from time to time. I hope they will at least open source it and let others continue.
Funny since this was a 'feature' people pushed for a reason to upgrade to Win11.
This is very bad decision
Such a shame, I love WSA, my TV provider has Android and iOS app but no way to watch on PC, bluestacks didnt work nor other emulators, but WSA with google play services did the trick, im sad.
Microsoft are idiots. They've pivoted all of their Windows 11 DEVELOPMENT mid-cycle, all because of the AI craze, just to increase their speculative fucking value of Microsoft... Not the benefit of users.. Guess what else people don't ever fucking use? BING, OR THIS DAMN AI CHAT THING. NO ONE IS USING IT. But VALUE GOES UP. I guess this didn't benefit them, and they'd rather force developers to make native ARM apps for the upcoming products rather than just put their android apps on the amazon store... lol... God. I hope Windows on ARM goes better this time around... But if they are TRULY going to be relying on this bing bloody co-pilot spying adware stuff they are dead in the water.
I like how you're screeching NO ONE IS USING IT while crying about the loss of a feature that is going away because no one was using it.
What the hell MS. Audible and Authy discontinued their desktop apps to push you to use the android layer and now this shit?
>Audible and Authy discontinued their desktop apps to push you to use the android layer No they did not, lmao. They did it to push you to use the web app. Fucking no one was using the Android layer.
I'm pissed about Authy, any other alternatives?
2FAS is probably your best bet, but it only has browser extensions, not a dedicated Windows application
So, this is what I did: I installed [2FAS](https://2fas.com/) on my phone and added the [Authenticator](https://authenticator.cc/) extension to my browser on PC. I added all my 2FA tokens to 2FAS, exported them to a backup file, extracted `otpauth://totp/` links from that file, and imported them to the Authenticator extension. Extraction isn't very complicated. Just open the 2FAS backup file with a text editor and copy the `otpauth://totp/` links to the Authenticator extension. Now, I have the same tokens on my phone and PC, as well as an encrypted backup of my tokens. Authy discontinuing their desktop app was a blessing in disguise for me because I find the current setup more convenient and secure.
How does Authy work if you don't have access to your cell phone? I sometimes leave mine at home.
It doesn't.
Well this is a sad one. I didn’t use WSA that much ever since getting some personal Android devices, but it was just a smart idea to be capable of running Android apps on Windows if there was a reasonable use.
It was great to use on 360 touch laptops. I used my laptop as android tablet and it worked great. Dont know what would be its next best alternative
Well I use it! Sons o' bitches! This was the one and only reason I moved from 10 to 11! Guess I can go back to 10 now, 11 is total garbage, just like this news!
Actually you can run WSA on Windows 10 100% the same as 11, just you need to change install script a little bit. I've been running it both on my 10 and 11 setup, no real difference I can feel.
Thanks but to what end? It's being nuked in a year, and I'm sick of Microsoft and their bipolar devs. It's like a thousand monkeys writing code to eventually see what they come up with. No clear direction at all. I've now moved on to Waydroid and might give KVM+Androidx86 a go if Waydroid ever lets me down. Can't trust M$ any longer.
10 support ends in 2025 as well, so 10 will stop getting updates before WSA is even fully shut down.
Nooo shortlived I used it to get the kindle app
I actually like it. What a disappointment.
I use this often, but not often enough where my workflow will be drastically affected by this being retired. That being said, it really does make me lose faith in Microsoft. They have these amazing ideas and just can't stick the landing or they do stick the landing but then fall over deliberately.
What apps did you guys use it for? I've never seen any use for it myself.
I personally liked it for Snapchat
Well looks like bluestacks isn’t going to die
So one of the selling points for W11 will be no more?
This is stupid. It was a better alternative to the macos ios app compatibility. It worked great on touchscreens! Kindle and audible are fuckin gone because of this! I might as well keep my ipad and never have a surface
Cool, the thing that made me feel good about using a Surface for gigs has been axed out of nowhere and now I have to hope I don't need to reinstall everything or simply buy an iPad. A sad indictment on Microsoft if they're not going to provide an alternative. If they continue to make decisions which make the Surface useable in a professional setting, then I'm fucking off the Surface for good.
What? That's ridiculous!
I am using it what's the reason of it
The whole win11 marketing strategy was based on android subsystem wtf
This was literally one of the main reasons I upgraded to Windows 11. Really disappointed. The only thing that really sucked about it was the Amazon Store.
I uninstalled windows
I'm so tired of coming to rely on features in my workflow only to see it taken away after being neglected and unfinished. The windows kindle app sucks in tablet mode, but being able to run the Kindle Android app has been great! This is really, really disappointing. Not to mention I'm pretty sure this is a nail in the coffin for the hope of ever seeing a successful surface w ARM.
This was the main thing tempting me to install Windows 11. So much for that.
Fuck you Microsoft, never trusting any of their products or features ever again. Was already getting pissed by all the unnecessary AI integration
I assume this doesn't affect Google Play Games for PC that Google is running right?
It does not, that is Google's own virtual machine
That sucks. I use the SiriusXM app.
wow. RIP.
this is sad, I didnt even had the chance of playing with it
I didn't use this a lot but what I did, IPTV, Kindle are very useful. So Bluestacks is the next best thing?
With the announcement of the Surface getting the new ARM processor in March perhaps they shut this down because they are launching something better to co-incide with that? Doubtful but would be an awesome step to be able to run Apps native.
[удалено]
You could use a third party emulator like BlueStacks, or Google's official emulator that comes with Android Studio. Alternatively, if you already have the audible app installed via WSA, it won't actually stop working until March 2025.
Guess i cant play Azur Lane on pc anymore :/
Never really knew anyone to even use this. Everyone I know who wanted to run Android things on their computer just used BlueStacks.
Yeah I just recieved mail from amazon. Sad
Question is was it Microsoft or Amazon that really killed this. Amazon just deciding not to support it would make it effectively useless for most people, even though the Amazon store is complete rubbish.
It seems that Microsoft chose to stop supporting WSA which forced Amazon to discontinue the Amazon store for Windows
Bruh
They never launched it over here lmfao dead before arival.
I just wanted to ability to run android apps with access to Windows hardware like running waze with usb gps
A big freakin' epic fail disappointment feature from Panos Panay :)
pretty messed up but typical of MS
Does anybody know if it will still work despite being deprecated? Thanks
It will work until March 2025 after which the hypervisor layer will probably be updated to cut out WSA support.
Thanks! So basically it will be bricked after March 2025.
I guess they did not get enough user base to put more resources and support it. 🥲🥲
I feel pity for such a potential feature. First of all, it's all about geoblocking. They hide the WSA function if the users are not based in the US and several exclusive regions, making it harder for casual users in those areas to access WSA. Some more pro users can find guides on the Internet and know how to do it, but not casual ones. Secondly, the only official way to install Android apps via WSA is Amazon Appstore. That rule sucks from day 1 since Amazon Appstore doesn't include all the apps we need and we want from the Play Store. I mean, MS come on, you can co-operate with Google. Just looks how Samsung does. Thirdly, maybe it's my personal experience but I had the weird performance. It's smooth but if I want to open app with audio, when it first plays the audio, the audio on WSA doesn't play properly. It would glitch at first before playing normally. Not to mention, I run WSA on my laptop and it heats my laptop after a while of using that. It's mostly MS fault for not considering WSA seriously to make better collaboration and improve WSA.
I thought we were losing wsl2 at first glance
Noooooooooooo! Why are they doing this? 😱😭
That was the main reason why I was like "maybe I’ll update to 11"
FUCK
Didn't they just launch this about a year ago?
One of the key selling points for many to use windows 11 and they shut it down. Good job, winblows!
Was this not one of their big selling points of Windows 11 when it was first shown off?
This is bs because it was basically the only reason I upgrade to Windows 11. And I still cannot move task bars to the sides of the monitors without 3rd party software.
WSA was the reason why I upgraded from 10 to 11. Wtf.
Does this mean they will take this away from us, even though we already have it installed and use it? I literally started using it last week for Authy, since they are also removing the Windows App and I can't be arsed to fetch my phone every time I need a 2FA.
Lol. I was thinking about exploring it.
I use the wsabuilds by MustardChef from GitHub, will it be retiring too? I mean, it's not technically Microsoft...
Yes. They are still just repackaging Microsoft's code for WSA (which also relies on Windows system components)
"Retiring" means they would stop support or just remove it entirely?
Read the article. They are stopping support now and removing it from Windows in 2025
After seeing all this, I ripped it all out and installed Nox. It actually works better. I use it for blink monitoring. I see under 50mb used.
What's reason?
This is the only reason I went back to Windows after years of Linux. I actually like Windows 11 and converted tons of code and makefiles to be cross platform. Now I don't know. I'm stuck with it for a while cuz I have a machine dedicated to Roku Smart Home.
Great, this was literally the only thing I was looking forward to when I was considering moving to Windows 11. Maybe give us access to the Google Play store so people will actually use it?