Android 13 isn't yet available to the public, but a developer preview came out less than a week ago. Now it seems one developer has used it to get Windows 11 running on Android 13 in a virtual machine (VM).
As Android Authority reports (via PCWorld), Android web and app developer Danny Lin (known as kdrag0n on Twitter), showed off Windows 11 Arm running in a virtual machine on the Google Pixel 6. Lin was able to boot Windows 11 on top of the built-in hypervisor in Android 13.
And here's Windows 11 as a VM on Pixel 6 https://t.co/0557SfeJtN pic.twitter.com/v7OIcWC3AbFebruary 13, 2022
In addition to screenshots, Lin also posted a video showing how Windows 11 runs on Android 13.
Booting Windows, logging in, using it a bit pic.twitter.com/r1ws0WFxOgFebruary 14, 2022
It even runs Doom, naturally.
Yes, it runs Doom (connecting to the phone's Windows VM from my computer for keyboard input) pic.twitter.com/6PORUnJk8mFebruary 14, 2022
As for how it all works, Android Authority says that Google created a new virtualization framework for Android 13 meant to standardize Android’s virtual machine structure. Google, according to Esper editor and former XDA-Developers editor-in-chief Mishaal Rahman, has put significant work into making a better virtualization framework for Android devices.
How does this benefit you? At the moment, this is only a neat trick that Android developers can test out. But if Google doesn't remove the ability to run a VM on the public version of Android 13, it should be possible for average folks to get Windows 11 running on Android devices.
We should note that this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen Windows running on Android. For As Android Authority notes, a community called Renegade Projected ported Windows 10 Arm and Windows 11 Arm to Snapdragon 845 devices. Clearly, there is a desire to have Windows running on Android.
If getting Windows 11 to run on Android 13 in a virtual machine ever becomes a main feature (or at least easy enough for people to enable), it’d be interesting to see how it would run on the newly released Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra. As we noted in our hands-on review, Samsung’s latest tablet can almost double as a laptop. Having Windows 11 running on the slate would almost turn it into a proper PC.
As for Android 13, a stable beta is expected to release around the Google I/O developer conference in April, with a final release sometime this fall. We’ll bring you more news about Google’s upcoming operating system as it develops. And of course, Windows 11 is still due to get its own promised native Android app support, with a preview expected to debut later this month (February 2022).
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