Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

learn.microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 256 posts

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

#61

Post by stillold »

theusus wrote: post #4

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

They created a huge buzz around it, took over a year to release and when they did so, released it to the wrong Insider ring, so everyone who was on the fast ring specifically for and waiting for it had to re-install.

I believe, without any proof, that this is why they had to redo their rings and what they meant shortly after.

Then there is everything else people have mentioned, with them being completely reliant on Amazon's store but requiring "something" where most of the apps that are on Amazon's mobile store weren't available.

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

#62

Post by bonton89 »

zoeysmithe wrote: post #57
theusus wrote: post #4

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

I imagine not only is this a technical challenge in general, but the "best" apps require google integration and google is giving devs and big companies incentives to require the google play libraries, which this can't use. This has been google's main dirty trick since the beginning, which is why you don't see much competition in the android space. Its a few big licensed players. Niche, homebrew, emulated, etc players…

Is the Windows store popular now? Aside from Microsoft dog fooding I didn't get the impression it was very much used even after all these years.

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

#63

Post by mnahkies »

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…

Some of the challenger banking apps are mobile only which might be a use-case. Ideally I'd like to see them offer a desktop/responsive web app though

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

#64

Post by sphars »

xnx wrote: post #16

I found WSA kind of handy to run Pocket Casts on old Microsoft Surface Tablet. Had to jump through some hoops to install Google Play first. What's the best alternative? Bluestacks seems very shady. Chrome OS Flex in a VM? (Scratch that. It looks like Chrome OS Flex doesn't allow Android apps) P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google?

> P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google?

Well someone went ahead and made https://killedbymicrosoft.info/

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

#65

Post by jamal-kumar »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55
wkat4242 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't know how they plan to shaft business users with that. It's so slow. I noticed recently that Microsoft relented and soon starts introducing CoPilot features into old outlook (or 'real' or 'full' outlook as people are calling it at work). Previously it was coupled to 'new' outlook only to promote adoption. But it really sees a lot of pushback from users. I hope this will continue into not canning the real…

New Outlook still doesn't handle S/MIME. That means it's between annoying to useless in large companies, depending on the volume of such e-mails you're getting.

What email client is popular in large enterprises then? Last time I worked in a company like that it was all microsoft software, including outlook, by policy

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

#66

Post by kevincox »

mnahkies wrote: post #63
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…

Some of the challenger banking apps are mobile only which might be a use-case. Ideally I'd like to see them offer a desktop/responsive web app though

Most of these use device attestation anyways so they are unlikely to run on Windows. The bank wants to ensure that the user doesn't have root access which isn't the case on Windows.

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

#68

Post by sonicanatidae »

basch wrote: post #32
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 haven't tried it, but allegedly Outlook for Android runs better on Windows than the new Outlook for Windows. Which makes some sense, as one is a native app and one is a web app. https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/i-ac...

Outlook is hot garbage and has been for a lot time. Every single version.

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

#69

Post by olabyne »

commoner wrote: post #42
xnx wrote: post #16

I found WSA kind of handy to run Pocket Casts on old Microsoft Surface Tablet. Had to jump through some hoops to install Google Play first. What's the best alternative? Bluestacks seems very shady. Chrome OS Flex in a VM? (Scratch that. It looks like Chrome OS Flex doesn't allow Android apps) P.S. Do we make "jokes" about Microsoft killing things off like we do with Google?

> What's the best alternative? Waydroid runs Android apps on Linux and some people claim to have gotten it to work on WSL. - Waydroid: https://waydro.id Reddit threads: - https://www.reddit.com/r/bashonubuntuonwindows/comments/eofn... - https://www.reddit.com/r/waydroid/comments/10y813d/is_it_pos... - https://www.reddit.com/r/waydroid/comments/14e6t3g/does_maki...

Waydroid was a bliss to install on fedora. It does run very well now, a big improvement from the first releases
Post reply on HN