Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#211

Post by creshal » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 7:36 AM UTC

cherryteastain wrote: post #117

creshal wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As in, the thing that tried to implement Linux syscall interfaces on top of the Windows kernel? It's really funny, NT was supposed to be great at three things: - be easily ported to different hardware architectures, which then never actually became relevant (and nowadays macOS is the best example for actual architecture migrations!) - have a much more sophisticated and elaborate security model than those filthy uni…

>macOS is the best example for actual architecture migrations Eh, they did 2 migrations while supporting at most 2 architectures concurrently. Nothing compared to Linux which is maintained for x86, POWER, ARM, s390x, MIPS etc concurrently

But contrast that to Microsoft's absolutely hilariously inept attempts at bringing Windows to ARM. The amount of cumulative money spent over the last 15 or so years versus the actual market penetration is insane.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#212

Post by BlindEyeHalo » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 7:42 AM UTC

PreInternet01 wrote: post #18

So, this is the second time a "run your Android apps on Windows" initiative fizzles out: before WSA (which was Amazon-centric), there was a late-2020 "Your Phone" feature that (briefly) allowed Samsung apps on Windows desktops. Not sure if this means anything other than "phone apps run best on, well, a phone", especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop, other than i…

> especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop

One thing that immediately comes to mind are streaming apps. Most providers don't offer windows apps and the websites don't allow downloads, which is very annoying for laptops/windows tablets.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#213

Post by fragmede » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 7:50 AM UTC

rkagerer wrote: post #210

With the way they name these "subsystem for" products I can never tell if it makes A run on B, or B run on A.

Right? Calling it "RunsOn" would be better for Understanding.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#214

Post by diarrhea » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 8:06 AM UTC

baq wrote: post #74

ComputerGuru wrote: post #3

This is kind of weird since much of the tech is shared with WSL. It also makes me question the future of WSL, though that would be insane to deprecate given it has worked miracles for rehabilitating Microsoft‘s image and Windows’ usability.

WSL is what makes Windows viable in ML/AI at all. They've made a correct (in hindsight it was genius, actually) decision to expose GPUs in WSL using Windows drivers and a shim in a vm. It works surprisingly well.

I was under the impression ML/AI development works fine under Windows, as that’s where a lot of (data) scientists already are.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#215

Post by nor0x » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 8:24 AM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #77

nor0x wrote: post #72

WSA is a great feature for developers. not having to deal with sluggish Android emulators was a big plus for me.

Are you not using an x86 emulator or something? Forget to install or enable your CPU virtualization extensions? Because the emulator ain't sluggish, and if it is you'd get that same sluggishness with WSA since it's largely the same underlying tech. It's still using a virtual machine and emulation, it's not like a simulator.

i am using an x86 emulator - booting it up takes about twice as long though compared to WSA. Also being able to dynamically resize the Window as need was nice to test different sizes directly within WSA instead of having multiple emulators running

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#216

Post by viliml » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 8:50 AM UTC

PreInternet01 wrote: post #18

So, this is the second time a "run your Android apps on Windows" initiative fizzles out: before WSA (which was Amazon-centric), there was a late-2020 "Your Phone" feature that (briefly) allowed Samsung apps on Windows desktops. Not sure if this means anything other than "phone apps run best on, well, a phone", especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop, other than i…

> especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop Games. There are a ton of games that are mobile-exclusive for absolutely no reason other than reducing developer workload by staying confined to one platform, and work great on emulators.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#217

Post by viliml » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 8:55 AM UTC

13of40 wrote: post #101

PreInternet01 wrote: post #18

So, this is the second time a "run your Android apps on Windows" initiative fizzles out: before WSA (which was Amazon-centric), there was a late-2020 "Your Phone" feature that (briefly) allowed Samsung apps on Windows desktops. Not sure if this means anything other than "phone apps run best on, well, a phone", especially since I can't think of anything from my phone that I would truly like on my desktop, other than i…

I was using the Google Photos map search via BlueStacks on my Windows machine briefly, but that's only because Google made the perplexing decision to not put that on desktop.

It's not perplexing, it's pure business. "Mobile-first" has been the dogma for a decade already for a reason. dO yOu GuYs NoT hAvE pHoNeS?

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#218

Post by viliml » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 8:56 AM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #14

theusus wrote: post #4

I feel like this was released just yesterday and now they are ending the support. Why?

Really good q I'm shocked too. Riffing: Without Play Store it's not viable/interesting. Also, it's so. much. work. keeping up with Android releases, even inside Google. Wear and ChromeOS are always a version or two behind, and vast majority of the time, it is two versions. If Google internally wasn't helpful enough to each other, I can't imagine they played nice with Microsoft on this. The broad business war means th…

> Without Play Store it's not viable/interesting.

Just install a version of WSA that has the Play Store. Take Magisk along the way too because why not.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#219

Post by viliml » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 8:58 AM UTC

Tiberium wrote: post #46

Interesting to note that there's an alternative specifically for running Android games on Windows - Google Play Games [1] which is Google's official offering, and it does not rely on WSA tech so that it works on Windows 10 as well. [1] - https://play.google.com/googleplaygames

Anything that requires first-party opt-in is bad.

With WSA, you could take any old APK file you pick up off the road and install it on your desktop.

With GPG, they decide what you can and cannot play.

Re: Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA)

#220

Post by viliml » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 9:00 AM UTC

hiatus wrote: post #8

> Windows Subsystem for Android™ enables your Windows 11 device to run Android applications that are available in the Amazon Appstore. This seems so niche it is not a huge surprise they are ending support. Though at the same time, the initial article is from August of last year so it had a very short life.

True, almost everyone was actually using jailbroken versions of it since the official one was too limited, I guess Microsoft didn't like that.