MS discontinues Windows Subsystem for Android. As a result, Amazon discontinues its Appstore on Windows 11. Support for both until March 2025.

[Primus]

Windows Subsystem for Android™️

Windows Subsystem for Android™️ enables your Windows 11 device to run Android applications that are available in the Amazon Appstore. Learn more about set up, device requirements, installing and uninstalling, input compatibility, testing and debugging, and using the Amazon Appstore.

learn.microsoft.com

Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android™️ (WSA). As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025. Until then, technical support will remain available to customers.
Customers that have installed the Amazon Appstore or Android apps prior to March 5, 2024, will continue to have access to those apps through the deprecation date of March 5, 2025.

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This is a huge bummer, it's been out for barely a couple of years and MS is already pulling the plug.

 

[RUFF BEEST]

To be honest, it being tied to the Amazon Appstore always sucked anyway.

BlueStacks, with real Google Play Store support, is the way. As an owner of a 2-in-1 Microsoft Surface w/touchscreen and tablet mode, it's been a nice way to run the occassional Android app when needed. 👍


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4gYZTJbJ0o

 

[404LinkNotFound]

Bluestacks team must be throwing a party right about now

 

[Vipershark]

That didn't last long.
Or any time at all.

What a waste of time and resources.

 

[Lukar]

Gonna be real, I only ever used BlueStacks even after they launched this feature.

 

[Lebon30]

Windows Subsystem for Android™️

Windows Subsystem for Android™️ enables your Windows 11 device to run Android applications that are available in the Amazon Appstore. Learn more about set up, device requirements, installing and uninstalling, input compatibility, testing and debugging, and using the Amazon Appstore.

learn.microsoft.com

Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android™️ (WSA). As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025. Until then, technical support will remain available to customers.
Customers that have installed the Amazon Appstore or Android apps prior to March 5, 2024, will continue to have access to those apps through the deprecation date of March 5, 2025. Please reach out to our support team for further questions at support.microsoft.com. We are grateful for the support of our developer community and remain committed to listening to feedback as we evolve experiences.

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That sucks. I guess Bluestacks' still a thing...

As for the Amazon side, I just received an email from Amazon about this. Here's a copy-paste:

Dear Customer,

We are writing to inform you about changes to the availability of Amazon Appstore on Windows 11.


Starting March 6, 2024, Amazon Appstore will no longer be available for download from the Microsoft Store on Windows 11 devices. After March 5, 2025, Amazon Appstore on Windows 11 and any apps downloaded from it will not be supported. For additional details and insights into this transition, please read our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section: www.amazon.ca/appstoreonwindowsFAQ


Despite this change, we want to assure you that Amazon Appstore will continue to be available and supported on Fire TV, Fire Tablet and Android devices. We appreciate your understanding and continued support as we work to enhance and evolve the Amazon Appstore experience on those devices.


If you have further questions, please contact Amazon Customer Service.


Amazon Appstore


Please note: This e-mail was sent from a notification-only address that cannot accept incoming e-mail. Please do not reply to this message.

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...and, as it concerns the appstore, nothing of value was lost.

Spoiler: My thoughts

It was a great idea. However, in Microsoft fashion and correct me if I'm wrong, there was a lot of hurdle to overcome to even make the Appstore work:

1. You had to have Hyper-V enabled (which is not by default) and your CPU needs to support it (although, if you follow Win11 min specs and don't bypass them, you shouldn't have that issue)
2. You had to install Windows Subsystem for Android (also not installed by default) from MS Appstore
3. You had to download the Amazon Appstore off of MS Store (step 1 and 2 are mandatory)
?. Wonder why it's not working.

But then, the Amazon appstore isn't Google Play. So, the the app selection is very limited and, because of that, no dev had any incensitive to distribute on that app store.

Because of all the prerequisites, it was a power user only feature. It's too bad because, if these feature been installed by default, and the appstore advertised correctly, it could've been a bigger hit. Once you had it working, it worked pretty well afaik.

WSA was also a B to make it working though... The thing was not really straightforward.

But, again, it's not the Google Play Store... so nobody gave a crap like most (read: all) alt appstores.

 

[Pop-O-Matic]

letthemfight.gif

 

[Masterz1337]

Didn't this launch a year ago? What a disaster things with windows have been lately. I can't wait to be completely free of it. They are even more aggressive than Apple at killing services and hardware people are using it seems at this point.

 

[AgeEighty]

Does this mean Windows 11 won't have native Android support anymore?

 

[cbajd5]

Dang, I only really got more apps setup in it recently but with the modified version that gave you a Google Play and Magisk installation with it it's been much nicer for me than BlueStacks for the apps that work with it. (The only direct app I have a comparison for is Nier Reincarnation as that always ran slowly in BlueStacks for me but runs pretty much perfectly with WSA.)

 

[Turnscr3w]

LUL

 

[Primus]

Dang, I only really got more apps setup in it recently but with the modified version that gave you a Google Play and Magisk installation with it it's been much nicer for me than BlueStacks for the apps that work with it. (The only direct app I have a comparison for is Nier Reincarnation as that always ran slowly in BlueStacks for me but runs pretty much perfectly with WSA.)

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That's what I've been doing as well, I have an older machine and Bluestacks is heavy and chonky, whereas WSA just nicely runs and goes away afterwards.

 

[SRG01]

Either their agreement with Amazon changed, or they didn't see enough of an uptake to maintain the product...

And running Android apps natively on Windows is the niche-est of niches.

 

[Android Sophia]

When it worked using sideloaded apks, it was a very cool feature.

But the implementation as done by Microsoft was incredibly half-assed and basically only for power users, which severely limited it's use. You COULD get the Google Play store on there, but few were willing to jump through even more hoops to do that.

 

[NinjaLooter]

Maybe release it to regions that actually has a huge Android marketshare to determine if it's really going to be worth it.

 

[OhSatan]

It was such a good feature ;_;

 

[B4mv]

The implementation of this entire thing was an entire disaster, and I'm honestly not suprised they're sunsetting it.
Might as well just run a VM in hyperV to do this shit, as you basically need that type of computer experience to get it up and running in the first place.

 

[TeenageFBI]

Gotta be honest, I tried the whole Android in Windows thing once and it was confusing and glitchy. Didn't use it for long.

 

[Carbon]

That didn't last long.
Or any time at all.

What a waste of time and resources.

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"Microsoft....What a waste of time and resources"

 

[cbajd5]

That's what I've been doing as well, I have an older machine and Bluestacks is heavy and chonky, whereas WSA just nicely runs and goes away afterwards.

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Even with my newish laptop I setup last month I installed BlueStacks for one game that didn't work at all in WSA (World Flipper) and while it runs alright most of the time it still has times where it'll just crash for no obvious reason or freeze up. There's also the startup ads and occasional launch ad BlueStacks has that are annoying but understandable for keeping it free, but WSA not having those was nice too.

 

[lunarworks]

By taking a piece of Google into themselves they gained Google's ability to kill-off something out of nowhere.

 

[LumberPanda]

Pour one out for WMR and WSA.

Up next: WSL.

 

[GuessMyUserName]

It was the reason I updated to W11 immediately because I figured welp if I'm gonna update for it at some point I might as well get used to it.

Ended up just being a big mess, too much of a headache to bother with and simply couldn't do the things I wanted from it.

I've cast my phone to my PC through Windows Phone Link more than I've bothered with this thing.

 

[Nepenthe]

Apologies. No idea why this was closed. Might have been a butt-lock by someone. Carry on!

🚪🚶🏿‍♀️

 

[ShadowSoldier89]

wow...one of the only positives windows 11 had over 10. I used it a good bit too.

Back to bluestacks and its billion ads...

 

[Deleted member 57019]

I hope this is a sign of them focusing on the stuff that moves the needles for Windows 12 or whatever update comes this year.

Pour one out for WMR and WSA.

Up next: WSL.

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I can't see them getting rid of WSL. It is a huge part of their pitch to developers now.

 

[Dinjoralo]

I remember trying this and it broke VRR on my monitor, and I couldn't fix it. Not like there was much for me to do with it given Microsoft specifically updated it at some point to stop people from loading their own APKs.

Still surprised they're actually bothering to remove it so soon. It's still the typical Microsoft schtick, where they release a potentially useful Windows thing and arbitrarily kneecap it for no reason, but they usually just let those things fester and become less and less usable for several years as updates don't take it into account.

 

[Why would you do that?]

That sucks. I've not upgraded to Windows 11 (I'm on a 4790k still, and I don't want to do the workarounds) but it was one of the things I was actually looking forward to trying when I finally did get my hands on Windows 11.

 

[plagiarize]

I dabbled with it, but it didn't really work well with any of the apps I was hoping it would. Ah well.

 

[Daccus]

Disappointing. I used it to sideload some apps that didn't have a desktop Windows or web app. Bluestacks has always felt too bloated for me.

At least it'll stick around for another year.

 

[PurpleMoustache]

I set this up right around when it came out and never used it. I remember it being an oddly draconian setup process, none of which was explained anywhere in the OS, and I had to rely on some random website to understand what I was doing.

 

[elenarie]

This had failure written all over it considering the barrier to entry and the building being held together by an Amazon Basic ductape.

 

[jobrro]

I was pretty excited about this feature when it was announced.

The reality of it was a major letdown.

First of all, it took years for it to arrive in my country. The Amazon app store has zero apps I want. Trying to sideload apps doesn't always work because some of the few apps I do want on my PC have dependancies on Google Play services. There was some unofficial script you could run in Windows Terminal that supposed to give you Google Play services and store but I saw comments it installed some dubious software at the same time so didn't want to risk it.

The tech was there but is unfortunate Google didn't want to play ball with Microsoft on this one.

Google has their own Android emulator on Windows in beta now too, unfortunately so far it only works on games (and as it is in beta there is a limited selection of titles).

 

[Lebon30]

Does this mean Windows 11 won't have native Android support anymore?

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Pretty much, yeah.

Gotta be honest, I tried the whole Android in Windows thing once and it was confusing and glitchy. Didn't use it for long.

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I also had issues getting an apk to work...

This had failure written all over it considering the barrier to entry and the building being held together by an Amazon Basic ductape.

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The reason why it fail. Everything was disabled by default. You just couldn't download an APK and double-click on it like a .exe or .msi.

 

[Xavien]

Pour one out for WMR and WSA.

Up next: WSL.

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Absol-fricken-lutely not. Dont ever want to go back to dual boot just to develop in Linux. Or slow-ass VMs

 

[Slayven]

It was half ass and terrbile

 

[Transistor]

Add it to the list

Killed by Microsoft

Killed by Microsoft is the open source list of dead Microsoft products, services, and devices. It serves as a tribute and memorial of beloved services and products killed by Microsoft.

killedbymicrosoft.info

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

Never worked right for me. I always just used the Phone App to remote into my tablet as it was more consistent but had some annoying processes that I wish they would smoothen out.

 

[Shadow]

I was excited for this until I found it it just composed of the Amazon App Store with the lowest budget apps possible.

If they added Google Play Store and made it more user friendly, then I could see it doing pretty good actually. That way they could've had a lot of exclusive Android apps on Windows with ease.

 

[Snarfington]

Fuck, I still use this pretty much daily for the PS app for party chat with PS5 owners. What an enormous pain.

 

[AAION]

I did the whole setup but tbh I never really ever needed to use any android apps on pc so I just never used it

 

[Zulith]

sucks, because this could be a killer feature if they implemented it well. Thankfully we have many excellent Android emulators that function very well to fill the gap. I don't think the subsystem managed to convert many of those users anyway, since it lacked many features those emulators have.

 

[nsilvias]

tying it to amazon killed it before it had a chance

 

[Vagabond]

Amazon Appstore and the long startup times for an app killed it for me.

 

[Ambient]

What a gigantic waste of time and money.

 

[sjnowak]

Fuck, I still use this pretty much daily for the PS app for party chat with PS5 owners. What an enormous pain.

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Same here, my current contingency plan until PS5 gets a more streamlined Discord integration like the Xbox does is to use the third party remote play apps. (I imagine more people that are exclusively console would be more willing to join a voice channel on Discord if this was true.)

Chiaki4deck in particular lets you use the microphone and you can adjust more settings than the standard remote play app. Obviously this only works for people that can remote in.

There's also some applications that let you use your PC as a Bluetooth receiver, which in theory could let you join the party on your phone and use your PC headphones.

 

[Xadra]

That's a shame. Even though the implementation was sloppy and the Amazon App Store didn't have all the apps, I still found it useful from time to time.

BlueStacks had a lot of shovelware (which may still be the case).

 

[antispin]

I never used this, but I'll miss it.

Phone Link does the job for me, but YMMV. It streams Android apps from your phone to your PC, if that helps!

 

[Sadire]

Pour one out for WMR and WSA.

Up next: WSL.

Click to shrink...

I got WSL running for some (very niche) work related things, I would hate to see it go.

 

[Plasma]

Bit annoying, I started using it after Amazon killed their Audible PC app.