Someone Fixed The Windows Subsystem For Android Because Microsoft Refuses To

If you’ve purchased a new laptop that uses Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite or X Plus processors, you might have noticed that the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) doesn’t work, despite coming preinstalled on the Surface Pro 11 and Surface Laptop 7. Well, after Microsoft’s unwillingness to fix it, Snapdragon Insider, Windows on Arm enthusiast, and Windows developer Jeremy Sinclair went out and did it himself.

Here’s the full story. Windows apps on Android are going away next year, and despite the fact that you can’t download the Amazon Appstore or the Windows Subsystem for Android without a direct link anymore, they should be supported until then.

However, that’s not quite what Microsoft is doing. The company actually shipped WSA on its new Surface devices, but when it didn’t work, it told XDA that it simply wasn’t going to fix it. I noted this in my review of the Surface Pro 11, since Android apps are considerably better for a tablet use case than Windows apps.

Sinclair was the first to discover that the actual reason WSA won’t boot is because parts of it use Armv7 to run, which isn’t supported by the Armv8 Snapdragon X series. Now, he’s created a way to get Android apps up and running, and you can do it yourself.

As always, there’s risk when it comes to modifying protected folders and files on your PC, but since Microsoft is unwilling to get its own (officially not deprecated until March 5, 2025) preinstalled software running on its own hardware, this is currently the only way to use Android apps on a Surface Pro 11, or any other Snapdragon X series laptop.

First steps

First, let’s get your laptop ready to run the Windows Subsystem for Android, which typically isn’t enabled out of the box.

Hit the Windows key and search for “Turn Windows featured on or off”.
After opening it, make sure that ‘Virtual Machine Platform’ and ‘Windows Subsystem for Linux’ are checked. If they are, move on. If not, select them, confirm, and reboot when prompted.
Go to Settings and search for ‘Developer settings’. Turn on the toggle for ‘Developer Mode’, and follow the prompts to confirm.
Open the Microsoft Store, go to your Library, and hit ‘Get updates’. This is to make sure you’re running the latest version of the Windows Subsystem for Android.

Note that depending on the device, it could be possible that virtualization is disabled in the BIOS. An easy way to check is just to try and run the Windows Subsystem for Android. If you don’t have virtualization enabled, it’s just going to tell you to enable it before it even tries to boot up.

Alright, you’re ready to go.

Installing a working Windows Subsystem for Android

Download WSA Patched from its GitHub page.
Create a new folder on your PC that’s going to store the files. I used c:wsa-patched.
Navigate File Explorer to c:Program Files. Select View -> Show -> Hidden items.
Right-click on the WindowsApps folder and select Properties.
Under the Security tab, select ‘Advanced’. Hit Continue to use administrative permissions, and select ‘Change’ in the Owner field.

Hit the ‘Advanced’ button, and then ‘Find Now’ in the dialog that opens. You’ll see a list of names. Find the one that matches your account, hit OK, and hit OK again.
Check the box next to ‘Replace owner on subcontainers and objects’. Hit OK.
Open the WindowsApps folder and find the MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_2311.40000.5.0_arm64__8wekyb3d8bbwe folder. Copy the contents into the folder you created earlier.
In the new folder, delete the AppxBlockMap.xml and AppxSignature.p7x files, and the AppxMetadata folder.

Open PowerShell as an administrator, and use the following command to uninstall WSA:

Get-AppxPackage -AllUser | Where {$_.Name -match "SubsystemForAndroid"} | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers

Navigate to the folder you created in PowerShell using the cd command (cd c:wsa-patched in my case).

Use the following PowerShell command to register your folder as the new WSA installation:

Add-AppxPackage-ForceApplicationShutdown-ForceUpdateFromAnyVersion-Register .AppxManifest.xml

Copy the system.vhdx and vendor.vhdx files to somewhere else so they’re backed up.
From the WSA Patched archive that you downloaded earlier, copy the two files into your folder.
Open the Windows Subsystem for Android from the Start Menu. It should open normally. If you go to Advanced settings, turn on Developer mode, and Manage developer settings, the Windows Subsystem for Android should boot up. Once that’s done, the Amazon Appstore will appear in your Start Menu and should run normally.
If you want something that’s not available on the Amazon Appstore (you probably do), check out our guide for sideloading apps on WSA.