How to Install Google Play Store on Windows 11 WSA?

Windows 11 supports running Android apps natively which is one of the features that stood out during its launch. This allows you to get rid of the different emulation software that has become the tradition over the years. Microsoft partnered with Amazon to bring Android apps to its machine via the Amazon App Store.

Google Play Store is the most famous and used app store on the Android operating system without a doubt. While the Amazon App Store works just fine, it has a limited catalogue of apps in comparison to Google Play Store. In such a scenario, you can sideload an Android app on your Windows 11 machine.

However, if the app requires Google Play Services, the app will not be able to work since they are missing altogether. To mitigate all of these obstacles, you will have to install Google Play Store on your system. We will be showing you how to do that in this article. 

Install Google Play Store on Windows 11

Installing Google Play Store on your Windows 11 machine involves a number of steps, from modifying the Windows Subsystem for Android kernel to installing the modified WSA on your machine and more. Since we will be modifying the WSA kernel, you will lose any existing data that lives on the subsystem. 

In this method, we will be using the MagiskOnWSALocal project on GitHub. Before getting started, you will need to make sure your Windows 11 is up to date. Open the Settings app and navigate to Windows Update to install any pending updates. 

With that out of the way, follow the instructions below to install Google Play Store on your computer. 

1. Remove the Existing Windows Subsystem for Android

To start off, you will need to uninstall the existing Windows Subsystem for Android on your computer. This is because we will be installing a new modified version of the WSA which allows you to install the Google Play Store. 

Follow the instructions below to remove Windows Subsystem for Android:

1. First, open the Settings app on your computer by pressing the Windows key + I on your keyboard.
2. Navigate to the Apps > Installed Apps menu on the Settings app.

   

3. From the list of applications, locate Windows Subsystem for Android. 
4. Click on the three dots and choose Uninstall from the drop-down menu.

   

2. Prepare Modified Windows Subsystem for Android

Now that you have removed the current version of Windows Subsystem for Android from your system, you will have to prepare a modified version of the WSA. This is because the Google Play Store is not available on the Windows Subsystem for Android by default. As such, the kernel needs to be modified to enable the installation of the Google Play Store. 

Fortunately, there is a community script available that automated the process of modifying the kernel. We will be using the script from the MagiskOnWSALocal project to modify the Windows Subsystem for Android kernel. The script can be run on a Linux distribution only so you will have to download WSL on your computer. 

Follow the instructions below to do this:

1. Open the Microsoft Store by searching for it in the Start Menu.

   

2. Then, search for Ubuntu via the search bar. 
3. Click on the Get button to install it.

   

4. After the installation completes, a Windows Terminal window will open. You will need to provide a username and password for the Ubuntu installation. Doing so will take you to an empty command line.

   

5. At this point, type in git clone https://github.com/LSPosed/MagiskOnWSALocal.git in the command line and press the Enter key. 
6. This will download the script required to create a modified version of the Windows Subsystem for Android. Wait for it to complete downloading. 
7. After that, you will have to navigate to the folder the script resides in. To do so, type in cd MagiskOnWSALocal/scripts and hit Enter in the command line. 
8. Finally, type in ./run.sh and press the Enter key. This will execute the script. You will be prompted to enter the UNIX password that you created a moment ago. Enter your password to allow the script to run. 
9. The script will start downloading a number of files and present you with a few prompts. You can go with the default options for all of them. 
10. Choose retail on the WSA release type screen and press OK.

    

11. After that, choose Yes on the Install GApps screen.

    

12. Finally, for the Root solution, choose None.

    

13. Once you do that, the script will start downloading the required files on your system.

    

14. Wait for it to complete. Once it does, you will be shown an empty command line prompt again. 

3. Install the Modified Version of the Windows Subsystem for Android

At this point, you have created a modified version of the Windows Subsystem for Android. All that is left to do is to install the modified WSA and follow it up with installing Google Play Store. Follow the instructions below to do this:

1. First, you will have to navigate to the output folder to access the new files. Type in cd ../output and hit Enter. 
2. Inside the output, folder exists another folder that contains all the files we need. Since the name of this folder is generated automatically as per the versions, you can use the ls command to find out the name. 
3. Once you know the name of the folder, you will have to copy it to the C: drive on your system.
4. Type cp WSA and press the TAB key to autocomplete the folder name. Do not press Enter. You will need to specify a directory for the files to be copied to. You can call the new folder anything, we’ll call it temp in this case. 
5. The final command should look like cp WSA_2011… /mnt/c/temp -r and then press Enter. Do not omit the -r argument at the end.

   

6. After that, open File Explorer on your system.
7. Navigate to the folder in the C: drive and run the Run.bat file. Click Yes on the User Account Control dialog box that appears.

   

8. Wait for it to complete. Once it completes, you will see the Google Play Store screen on your monitor.

   

4. Cleaning Up

Finally, the last step would be to clean up all of the files that were generated during this process. These files are no longer needed and were only meant to install the Google Play Store on your system. With that achieved, there is no purpose and you can remove them with no issues.

To do this, follow the instructions below:

1. In the WSL command prompt, type in rm ~/MagiskonWSALocal -rf and press Enter.
2. This will remove all of the script files from your WSL. You can also choose to uninstall WSL from your system since it is no longer needed.
3. Follow the same instructions as uninstalling WSA above to do so.