Microsoft is ditching Android app integration in Windows 11

In 2021 Microsoft announced a bold new initiative to give Windows 11 users access to Android apps via the Amazon App Store for Android.

Now the software maker has announced it is winding down the capability and ending support a year from today. The news comes from a new support document revealing Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android on March 5 2025.

“Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA). As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025. Until then, technical support will remain available to customers,” Microsoft wrote in the support document.

“Customers that have installed the Amazon Appstore or Android apps prior to March 5, 2024, will continue to have access to those apps through the deprecation date of March 5, 2025.”

The announcement ends three years after Microsoft introduced the feature as a means of helping Android phone users access their favourite apps without having to pick up their phones and interrupt productivity tasks.

At the time of the integration Microsoft pitched the familiarity and effortless integration of the apps. It promised the ability to run the apps side-by-side or with Windows apps, thanks to Windows 11‘s Snap Layouts feature.

Microsoft was also excited you could pin Android apps to Start menu or the Taskbar, while using them with mouse, touch or pen input. Notifications from Android apps appear in the Action Center while you can share clipboard content between both Windows apps and Android apps.

The idea was solid, but it appears Microsoft has not received the uptake it anticipated from the developer community, if the integration is being curtailed. Microsoft did not comment on why it has made the decision to bring the interoperability to a halt next year.