Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Android is being terminated - Amazon's App Store also affected

Starting from March 5, 2025, the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA for short) will no longer be supported by Microsoft, as can be seen from an updated support article from Microsoft. The subsystem, which was only released for Windows 11 in Germany in September 2022, will therefore only have a short lifecycle.

This also indirectly affects the Amazon App Store for Windows, which relies on the Android subsystem to function on Windows.

On March 5, 2024, the WSA was moved to Deprecated status. This means that anyone who downloaded the subsystem, including the Amazon App Store and Android apps, before the deadline will be able to continue using them for exactly one year. After that, Microsoft will likely switch off the WSA in Windows completely and remove it from the operating system. However, this is not guaranteed.

Link in the store is still active

However, the WSA can still be installed. The link to the store is still active even if there is a warning below it: "Windows Subsystem for Android will no longer be available in the Microsoft Store after March 5, 2025".

In order to use Android apps in the subsystem, the Amazon Store, which is part of the WSA, must be installed. As part of the partnership, some Android apps were also made available on Windows. However, compared to Google's Play Store, the Amazon App Store only offers a limited catalog of applications.

To use it, you also need an Amazon account and a supported region - Microsoft granted access only to a handful of countries. These mainly include English-speaking countries, but Austria, Germany, and Switzerland are also there. In addition, some other European countries are part of the WSA-supported regions.