Desktop Subsystem for Android™

Android apps as real desktop windows, on an open-source stack.

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DSA is an independent open-source project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Microsoft or Google. Android is a trademark of Google LLC. Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies.

What it is

DSA runs Android in a lightweight VM of its own and shows each Android task in a native desktop window. Each app has its own taskbar button, Start menu entry, notifications and entry in the list of installed apps, as it did with the Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA), which Microsoft ended on March 5, 2025. Every part of DSA is open source, so anyone can carry it on.

Status: preview. DSA v0.2 runs on Windows 11, x64 and ARM64. The features below are implemented and tested in CI; checking them by hand on real hardware is still in progress, so expect rough edges. Linux and macOS are in progress (see Supported platforms).

Features

Windows and input

• One native window per Android task, drawn as the app, with the app's own program name and icon in the taskbar, Alt+Tab and Task Manager. No emulator frame showing the whole screen.
• Windows 11 caption buttons over the app, snap layouts, live resize without recreating the app, and sharp output at every monitor scale.
• Mouse, touch and pen (pressure, eraser, barrel button), keyboard with every layout, and the Windows input method, including Korean, through the Android editor.
• Text input through the Windows text services framework, so reconversion, prediction, dictation, handwriting and the emoji panel work on the Android editor's own text.
• Each app scales across monitors without restarting: it takes the new monitor's density or its window is scaled, as chosen in DSA Settings or with dsa app-window --dpi-scaling.
• Windows 11's three- and four-finger touch gestures turned off while a DSA window is in front, if you choose, so the app gets them.
• Windows exposed to UI Automation, so screen readers can reach them.

Shell integration

• Start menu shortcuts and Windows search for every Android app, even while Android is stopped; apps listed under Settings > Apps > Installed apps, where they can be uninstalled.
• Android notifications as Windows toasts under each app's name and icon; clicking one opens the app, dismissing one dismisses it in Android.
• Apps that run in the background as notification area icons, with media keys and the media flyout for apps that play media.
• Android widgets placed on the desktop.
• Text clipboard shared both ways, links opened in the host browser, host files opened and shared into Android apps, shared folders.
• APK install by double-click, from the context menu, or with dsa install.

System

• Android's Doze as the idle state, so notifications keep arriving while the CPU rests, and idle memory returned to the host. Freezing Android is an option, off by default.
• Host devices lent to Android: GPU (Vulkan remoting through gfxstream, OpenGL ES through ANGLE), audio, video codecs, microphone, camera, location, sensors and power.
• An ARM translation layer for ARM-only apps on x64: the open source translator Digitalis comes with the x64 image, and Google's translator or another package can replace it.
• Signed automatic updates of both the Android image and DSA itself, with a failed image rolled back to the last good one, and a notification when an update is ready, applied or failed.
• Root access, off by default. Once it is on, an app or adb shell set to ask gets su after an administrator approves it in a prompt under the app's name; other apps cannot see su at all.
• Each Windows user gets their own Android and data disk, in their own profile.
• DSA Settings: apps, background apps, widgets, display and GPU, memory, network, device identity, updates, developer mode with adb, Android's live log and diagnostics.

Not shipped: Google Play services or an app store (their licences make them a user's choice), and any of Microsoft's WSA binaries. A user who wants Google Play installs it from DSA Settings or with dsa gapps install: DSA then downloads the public LiteGapps Core package for that user's Android and lays it over the system. Google Play never keeps Android from starting, and removing it works even while Android is stopped. Google's apps follow Google's terms.

Supported platforms

Host	Status
Windows 11, x64	Preview. Released as DSA-v<version>-win-x64-setup.exe
Windows 11, ARM64	Preview. Released as DSA-v<version>-win-arm64-setup.exe
Linux (x64, ARM64)	In progress. The KVM host, Wayland compositor and .deb/.rpm packages build and run in CI; not released yet
macOS (Apple silicon)	In progress. The host on Apple's Virtualization framework and its app bundle build in CI; not released yet

Android versions

DSA supports the newest two Android major versions: today Android 16 and Android 17. A version leaves support when the second newer major ships, so Android 16 is supported until Android 18 is released. The image updater moves each user to a supported version and never to a lower major on its own. You can choose either supported version in the settings app or with dsa android use; moving to the older one erases the Android data, because Android cannot read data a newer version wrote.

Dates after today are expected dates, not releases.

Install

1. Turn on the Windows feature Virtual Machine Platform and restart.
2. Download DSA-v<version>-win-x64-setup.exe, or DSA-v<version>-win-arm64-setup.exe on an ARM64 PC, from the latest release and check it against SHA256SUMS.txt.
3. Run it. Setup installs the DsaHost service, the dsa command, DSA Settings, and the first Android image (downloaded when setup does not carry one). Android starts when you sign in.

No kernel to build and no change to your WSL setup: DSA ships its own kernel and its own VM. Uninstalling removes everything DSA wrote except each user's Android disk.

Quick start

Open an Android app from the Start menu, or use the dsa command:

dsa status                          # Android's state and any pending update
dsa install app.apk                 # install an APK, or a split-APK bundle (.xapk, .apks, .apkm)
dsa apps list                       # the installed apps
dsa launch com.android.settings     # open an app in its own window
dsa settings set clipboard off      # change a setting (DSA Settings has the same switches)
dsa logcat -d -b all *:W            # Android's log, warnings and above
dsa logs collect -o diag.zip        # everything a problem report needs, as one zip

dsa with no arguments lists every command. Android's log stays in memory and flows to the host only while something reads it. Attach diag.zip to a problem report.

User guides

Step-by-step guides cover installing, apps and windows, APKs, files, Android versions, settings, memory, developer mode, troubleshooting and uninstalling: docs/guides. The introduction page explains the project for newcomers.

Architecture

flowchart LR
  subgraph guest["Android VM (guest)"]
    apps["Android apps"] --> sf["SurfaceFlinger"]
    sf --> hwc["hwcomposer"]
    apps --> angle["ANGLE"] --> vk["Vulkan (gfxstream guest)"]
    agent["DSA agent"]
    hal["HAL clients"]
    hwc & agent --> channeld["channeld"]
  end
  subgraph host["Host"]
    service["dsa-hostd service"]
    wm["dsa-wm window manager"]
    win["one window per task"]
    renderer["host Vulkan renderer"]
    devices["host devices"]
    cli["dsa / DSA Settings"]
  end
  channeld <-- "control protocol over vsock" --> service
  vk -- "Vulkan remoting" --> renderer --> wm --> win
  hal -- "RPC Binder" --> devices
  service <-- "local API" --> wm & cli

Loading

• Guest. A platform-signed agent makes the display freeform and reports tasks, apps and notifications. The hwcomposer hands each task's layers to the host as its own display. The HAL clients reach host devices over RPC Binder. There is no launcher, status bar or keyboard app: the host is the shell.
• Protocol. One definition, dsa/protocol/control.proto, with codecs generated for Rust, Java and C++. Every connection checks the protocol version, the schema hash and a per-boot secret.
• Host. dsa/host/core/ is platform neutral: sessions, the app registry and the lifecycle policy. Each OS adds the VM, the transport and the window system under dsa/host/platform/<os>/. On Windows the VM is created through the Host Compute System, and frames go from the GPU to each window through Direct3D 11 and DirectComposition, never through the CPU.

Building from source

The Rust crates form one workspace in dsa/:

cd dsa
cargo test --workspace
cargo build -p dsa-host-windows --release

Other parts have their own build, described next to them:

• the installer: dsa/host/platform/windows/installer/README.md
• the Windows host: dsa/host/platform/windows/README.md
• the guest kernel: dsa/kernel/
• the Android image and guest components: dsa/guest/
• the graphics path: dsa/graphics/

Upstream projects (AOSP, gfxstream, the kernel) are not vendored: scripts fetch a pinned revision and apply the patches kept here. Python tools run with uv run.

Repository layout

Path	What it holds
dsa/protocol/	The guest-host control protocol and its code generators
dsa/host/core/	The platform-neutral host
dsa/host/cli/	The dsa command
dsa/host/platform/windows/	The Windows host, window manager, installer and DSA Settings
dsa/host/platform/linux/, macos/, unix/	The Linux and macOS hosts and what they share
dsa/graphics/	Vulkan remoting, starting from gfxstream
dsa/guest/	The agent, hwcomposer, HAL services and the image configuration
dsa/kernel/	The guest kernel configuration and build
scripts/tests/	Repository checks
.github/	CI workflows, release scripts and the README's assets

Contributing

DSA is young and still being stabilized, so every report helps, whether or not you have a fix in hand.

• Found a bug or have an idea? Open an issue. Say what you did and what happened, with your Windows build (winver) and the DSA and Android versions (dsa status). A diagnostic bundle from dsa logs collect -o diag.zip makes a bug much easier to track down.
• Want to ask first or just talk it through? Come to the DSA Discord. Questions, what you are trying to run, and early feedback are all welcome there.
• Sending a change? Work happens on the develop branch; main is published from it. Open pull requests against develop, with one logical change per commit and a test for every behaviour change. Generated protocol code is never edited by hand. Please do not use em dashes in text: a repository check rejects them.

License

Apache-2.0. Each shipped third-party component keeps its own licence, listed in the installer.

Trademarks

Android is a trademark of Google LLC. Windows is a trademark of the Microsoft group of companies. DSA is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Microsoft or Google.