After installing the Windows Subsystem for Android on several test PCs, I can confirm that it works as advertised. But as with Windows 11 itself, system requirements (and geographical restrictions) mean that many users are unable to test the new feature for themselves. If you’re among those who can install and run the necessary bits, be prepared to be underwhelmed by the extremely limited selection of apps. There’s good reason for the scarcity, though; the Android-on-Windows feature (which is still officially in Preview) doesn’t use Google’s version of Android, nor does it allow access to the enormous collection of apps in the Google Play Store. Which is … not exactly a compelling proposition for would-be buyers. Also: Want to run Android apps on Windows 11? You need 8GB RAM but should have 16GB, says Microsoft What can you expect if you enable this feature on your own PC? I’ve got the details here. As the above screenshot shows, I was unable to install the necessary components on a Surface Go 2; its 8th Gen Intel M3 processor is good enough to run Windows 11, but it doesn’t meet the higher compatibility bar for the Android subsystem.
Windows 11 version 22000.0 or higher, any editionMicrosoft Store version 22202.1402.0 or laterArchitecture: X64 or Arm64Processor: Intel Core i3 8th Gen or later, AMD Ryzen 3000 or later, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8c or laterMemory: At least 8GB of RAM (16GB is recommended)Storage: A solid-state driveVirtualization: Enabled in hardware
I was also unable to install the Android bits in a Hyper-V virtual machine, even after enabling nested virtualization. The compatibility checker complained that the virtual hard disk wasn’t a solid-state drive and refused to complete the installation. I was more successful on a variety of Dell laptops and Surface devices, including the Arm-powered Surface Pro X, which handled the workload exceptionally well.
In operation, the Android virtual machine and running apps use a substantial amount of memory, which might explain why Microsoft says 16GB of RAM is recommended for this configuration. You can use Task Manager to monitor memory usage for the Windows Subsystem for Android. As you can see from this example, taken from the Surface Pro X with 16GB of installed RAM, the Android virtual machine itself gobbles up well over a gigabyte of memory, and the Kindle app plus its data file takes the total usage to more than 2GB. This scenario might have been more sustainable in a world where Windows ran on smaller tablets, but Microsoft pretty much killed off that form factor after the Windows 8 debacle. So, for now, the Windows Subsystem on Android is mostly just a proof of concept. Microsoft couldn’t crack the code for convincing developers to write native apps for its Windows tablets, and it’s difficult to see anything here that makes a more persuasive argument. As always, the correct answer is probably to just wait for version 3.
