News Windows 11 Insider Release Spotlights Focus Sessions, ISO Installers

[Admin]

The latest Insider Preview build of Windows 11 packs in monumental upgrades to the clock app, which has now become a welcome productivity and time management tool thanks to Focus Sessions. And Microsoft is also making ISOs available for users meaning to install the Insider releases of Windows 11.

Windows 11 Insider Release Spotlights Focus Sessions, ISO Installers : Read more

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Am I the only one who thinks Windows 11 would benefit greatly from a seamless Android emulator, something that'd work better than Bluestacks for people who don't run games?

 

[joshieecs]

Am I the only one who thinks Windows 11 would benefit greatly from a seamless Android emulator, something that'd work better than Bluestacks for people who don't run games?

Microsoft revealed they were adding full support for Android apps at the Windows 11 launch event. Not sure how you missed the news, it was a bombshell that caught everyone by surprised. They will have a partnership with the Amazon and their app store (Kindle apps) rather than Google, though a senior Microsoft employee have confirmed you can sideload apps.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1408222245265330178

View: https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1408222245265330178

 

[Alvar "Miles" Udell]

Microsoft revealed they were adding full support for Android apps at the Windows 11 launch event. Not sure how you missed the news, it was a bombshell that caught everyone by surprised. They will have a partnership with the Amazon and their app store (Kindle apps) rather than Google, though a senior Microsoft employee have confirmed you can sideload apps.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1408222245265330178

View: https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/1408222245265330178

I saw it, and note how I said "a seamless Android emulator", much along the lines of Windows 7's XP Mode. Having Amazon integration and having to side load apps is not the same as having an Android emulator with official Google Play integration.

 

[joshieecs]

It will be based on the work done for WSL2, I suspect. Running accelerated graphical apps on WSL2 is coming with Windows 11, too. GPU compute acceleration for has been out for a while, but not the GUI stuff. Working out how the Windows host and Linux/Android guest can cooperatively share the GPU was probably the biggest hurdle. It basically required porting DirectX to Linux. This devblog explains how the GPU sharing was accomplished.

This second devblog explains how the graphics get into windows on the host. In summary, they are using an impressive pipeline of tech to do something like "app streaming" over modified RDP from the virtual machine to the host. That is how linux GUI apps work, but the same tech should work for Android, too. If you have ever used the Your Phone app, you can do already sort-of run apps off your phone, it's just laggy. I have really high hopes for this.

There have been quite a number of breakthroughs in progress, leading to this glorious conclusion where Windows can run virtually any Android or Linux software as easily as Windows software, natively with good performance, supported by Microsoft.

As for Google apps, it's very easy to install Google Play on an Amazon Kindle. Just plug in the USB to the computer and run the Amazon Fire Toolbox from XDA, one click solution. It should be even easier to do it on Windows, because it's an open platform. I guarantee you there will be community support for it. Just a download-and-run thing or maybe a one-liner powershell that kicks off an install ps1 from the web, like how this installs scoop [ iwr -useb get.scoop.sh | iex ]. Maybe specify a custom winget repo with the Google Play the package. It could even end up being allowed in the official community report, who knows. But I am sure it will happen.

BlueStacks still has a lot of features beyond merely running the apps. You get an environment with touch emulation, macros, multi-instance, etc. I remember being surprised a while back when they recently added support for "hyper-v mode" using Windows Hypervisor Platform API for virtualization. Maybe they will be able to utilize Windows Subsystem for Android as the backend, while keeping the environment intact with all the extra features.