Windows 11 has a Windows subsystem for Android (WSA) —Similar to the already popular Windows subsystem for Linux (WSL) —which allows us to run the same applications available on our Android smartphone. Or I would allow it … if it weren’t because for now it only enables us to install fifty apps available in the customized version for Windows from the Amazon Appstore.
You can find tricks online to install 11 apps on Windows from other sources, but frequently you would find applications that, to function, depend on the presence of the basic pack of Google apps.
So we have good news for you: there is a method to install the Google Play Store on Windows, and thus be able to install all the apps we need. Of course, first a couple of notices:
The system is long, tedious, and possibly don’t work the first time.
You must use this tutorial at your own risk: It involves downloading third-party applications as well, and the method used certainly violates the Google Play service agreement.
Said that…
We begin the installation
Before starting the process, make sure have WSL2 installed on your Windows 10/11 (The authors of the tool recommend using Ubuntu as a distribution), as well as a file decompression software. Also, you must make sure to uninstall the Amazon Appstore if you already had it installed.
Open this website … and, in the form that appears, copy the Product Id ‘9P3395VX91NR‘and enter it in the web form, specifying in the first drop-down that we are entering the’Product Id‘and selecting’Slow‘in the second dropdown.
After pressing the button, We will see a huge list of files ready to download. We will scroll to the bottom of the web and download the largest file of all: one with a .msixbundle extension and 1.21 GB in weight. With this we will be downloading the WSA installation package … which will also allow us to alter it.
Once downloaded, we will open it with our program [des]favorite file compression. Among the files it contains, we will look for the two heaviest (with .msix extension) and we will extract the one whose name refers to the architecture of our processor (x64 or ARM64).
Once that is done, we will also have to open this second file with the compression program; its content We will unzip it in a new folder C: WindowsSubsystemAndroid. Once that is done, we must delete, in the new folder, the following files:
- AppxBlockMap.xml
- AppSignature.p7x
- [Content_Types].xml
Now, we must go to the WSAGAScript repository and download it in ZIP format. We open it, enter the only folder (WSAGAScript-main) and unzip its content in a new folder located in the root directory of the hard drive; in this case, in C: GAppsWSA.
Now open the OpenGApps website and indicate the following data to download: ‘Platform’ (normally it will be ‘x86_64’, but in your case it can be ‘ARM64’), Android (11.0) and Variant (‘pico’). Then we click on the red button.
Once you have downloaded this free version of the Google apps package, we will move this file to the folder #GAPPS within C: GAppsWSA *. Now go to * C: WindowsSubsystemAndroid and copy the four * .img files it contains:
- product.img
- system.img
- system_ext.img
- vendor.img
… To be able to paste them in the folder #IMAGES from * C: GAppsWSA *.
Next open the terminal of your WSL distribution in Windows Terminal and type “sudo su” to get root privileges (administrator); you will have to write the password below. Once that is done, you should go to the GAppsWSA folder, but using the Linux directory tree:
cd / mnt / c / GAppsWSA
Now we need to install three Linux programs; First we will update the Ubuntu installation and then we will install, using the following commands:
apt update
apt upgrade
apt lzip unzip dos2unix
Later we have to make the conversion to Unix format of four scripts located in the folder where we are:
dos2unix ./apply.sh
dos2unix ./extend_and_mount_images.sh
dos2unix ./extract_gapps_pico.sh
dos2unix ./VARIABLES.sh
Once that step is finished, the next one consists precisely of run two of those scripts (plus two new ones):
./apply.sh
./extend_and_mount_images.sh
./apply.sh
./unmount_images.sh
Now, we will open Windows Explorer to go to the folder #IMAGES on C: GAppsWSA *, copy the four .img files it contains, copy and paste them in * C: WindowsSubsystemAndroid.
Then go to C: GAppsWSA misc, copy the file ‘kernel’, go to C: WindowsSubsystemAndroid Tools, rename the file ‘kernel’ that you will find there to ‘kernel_bak’ and paste the ‘kernel’ that you had copied.
Install WSA and start Play Store
Next you will have to make sure that you have the developer mode activated in Windows, activate it otherwise, and open a Windows PowerShell terminal as administrator and execute the following command to finally install the Windows subsystem for Android:
Add-AppxPackage -Register C: WindowsSubsystemAndroid AppxManifest.xml
Now you can now open the Windows Subsystem for Android application from the Windows Start menu. But no, we are not finished yet: when you open it, you will find a configuration window like the one below, activate the ‘Developer Mode’ (this is independent of the ‘developer mode’ of Windows itself) and click on the icon next to the first menu option (‘Files’). It will be then when the subsystem will truly start.
The first start will be somewhat slow, but when it finishes, we will see that the Android file manager opens. That is that we are doing well, but we close it, because it is not what we need now: the next step will be look for the icon of the ‘Google Play Store’ among the applications of the Windows Start menu. And run.
If you let us log in, everything is fine: when you do, remember that notices will appear on your smartphone announcing that someone is trying to log into a new Android device (that you will recognize, specifically, as a Google Pixel 5); accept the notice to confirm that you are the one who is logging in, and voila. If all goes well, in a couple of minutes you will have before you the complete catalog of your Google Play Store.
Now there are only a couple of steps to take: in the configuration window of ‘Windows Subsystem for Android’ you have to temporarily disable it by clicking on the option ‘Turn Off Windows Subsystem for Android’, and then go to C: WindowsSubsystemAndroid Tools, rename ‘kernel’ to ‘kernel_root’ and ‘kernel_bak’ to ‘kernel’ (i.e. we restore the original kernel).
Now you can now start installing your favorite apps. !! Congratulations!!