Although as a brand new system, Windows 11 has caused a lot of controversy since its birth, issues such as forced network activation and major operation logic modification have brought a lot of trouble to users. However, in terms of the most innovative and attractive feature in Windows system updates in recent years, Windows 11 will definitely be selected for the function of natively calling Android APK.
Unfortunately, although this function has been tested overseas for several years, there is still no built-in Android subsystem in the Windows 11 system update in China, and users cannot directly install the Android subsystem. Although every user can install this function by himself through a series of settings and installation packages extracted by third parties, the excessively cumbersome manual installation steps have effectively discouraged a large number of people.
October 24th, recently, Microsoft officially announced that the Windows 11 Android subsystem WSA v1 is officially launched on the Microsoft Store, allowing Windows 11 users to run Android applications through the Amazon application store. Cory Hendrixson, Microsoft's partner development manager, said the feature has officially left the beta testing phase and is now available in 31 countries and supports more than 50,000 applications.
For ordinary users, this full launch can be said to be the best time to experience the Android subsystem. Taking this opportunity, Xiao Lei will take you to experience the Android subsystem after it was officially launched, and see how you can use the Win11 subsystem to run the Android APP experience. What is the difference between the Android subsystem officially launched by Microsoft and the third-party emulator?
When Windows and Android are integrated
is about to start, Xiao Lei needs to remind all readers. The so-called Windows 11 Android subsystem is essentially an official virtual machine running on Windows 11 system. If you want to run the Android system smoothly on the computer, there are some hardware requirements for the computer hardware configuration. If cannot meet the following hardware requirements, everyone does not recommend trying to install WSA:
Memory: minimum 8GB/recommended 16GB;
hard disk: recommended to use SSD solid-state hard disk;
CPU: should meet the requirements of Windows 11, i.e. Core i3 8th Gen, Ryzen 3000, Snapdragon 8c or above;
(Photo source: Windows Latest)
To enable the Android subsystem, we need to download and run an app called Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA for short) in the Windows store to implement it. Although we are not currently supported by this subsystem, as long as the store area is modified to the United States in "Time and Language" - "Country and Region", it can be installed normally.
After the application is officially launched, users no longer have to perform virtualization configurations by themselves. Just download and install WSA, the system will prompt you to install some virtualization software at once, basically injecting some Android basics into the Windows 11 system so that it can run Android applications reasonably.
(Photo source: Microsoftml2 Store)
After the installation is completed, we can open the WSA interface normally. But this is not over yet. Because WSA does not work locally for domestic purposes, it can only use the Amazon store mobile applications natively and does not support Google Play Store, let alone domestic application stores such as Kuan and Wandoujia . It is even more difficult to download applications.
Fortunately, a third-party developer abroad has developed the APK installer for WSA. Just enable the developer options of WSA, and then search and install APK installer/WSATools in the Microsoft Store, wait for the program to be ready, and then you can select your APK file and install it. Users who do not want to start the computer can also go to the startup item to turn off the startup boot.
(Photo source: Microsoft Store) Is
better than third parties?
So, what is the actual experience of installing and using WSA at present?
In order to test the actual experience of the WSA Android subsystem, we used a NUC with a CPU of i7-12700H, a graphics card of A770M, and 16GB dual-channel memory to conduct detailed compatibility/fluency testing on common WeChat, Douyin , Bilibili , Toutiao and other applications, as well as popular games such as Princess Link, Ark of Tomorrow, and the Double Parmisch.
WSA Android subsystem can maintain good compatibility during application testing, and basically all popular applications can run normally. You can use the mouse or touch screen to turn pages when using it. However, because these applications are actually running in small window mode, they cannot play video content in landscape screen, nor can they change the built-in resolution of the application, and the usability is not very ideal.
(Photo source: WSA)
Let’s take a look at the game test. The actual test 2D game "Princess Link" cannot run normally at all, while the 3D game "War Double Pamish" can only run in medium-quality quality, and because there is no key mapping, it is basically impossible to operate. Only the 2D game " Ark of Tomorrow " has relatively ideal running effect. At present, there is still a lot of room for optimization of game compatibility of the WSA Android subsystem.
(Photo source: WSA)
As a comparison, we downloaded NetEase MUMU emulator for testing. Judging from actual tests, third-party emulators not only have better application compatibility and more adjustable settings, but also have good optimizations for popular domestic mobile games. With in-store scripts and key mapping functions, the current experience of using third-party emulators is much better than that of Android subsystems.
Of course, the biggest problem with the current WSA Android subsystem is still resource usage. When WSA is turned on and Ark of Tomorrow is running, explorer will show that WSA-related processes consume nearly 5GB of memory, and the actual system memory occupies more than 80%. As for third-party emulators, they can basically ensure smooth operation as long as they divide 2GB of memory, and the experience gap between the two sides is still very obvious.
Summary: The official version of
, summarized, the biggest advantage of the current WSA Android subsystem is its integration. WSA-installed applications are the same as Windows applications. Users can see these applications in the Explorer. They can freely set shortcuts, add them to the Start menu, or be fixed in the taskbar, and support quick switching of applications through ALT+TAB and task view. The experience in this aspect is exactly the same as that of Windows applications.
(Photo source: Microsoft official website)
The problem is that even though WSA has arrived at the official version, its operating efficiency and compatibility are still not mature enough, and many third-party emulators can do WSA cannot be implemented for the time being. Not only that, the current Android application ecosystem is not necessary for the public. Only heavy mobile game players will pay more attention to the Android application ecosystem on their computers.
As for whether it is practical to be compatible with Android Apps in Windows systems, there are still many different opinions and no conclusions. But it is undeniable that this is a bold attempt by Windows systems in recent years, and it is also an important measure for Microsoft to improve the tablet ecosystem. If it can solve problems such as stability, resource calls and game performance in the future, I believe there will still be certain application prospects. Interested netizens can download and try it.
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