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Guide: Moving/Installing Windows Subsystem For Android™ (WSA) to another partition or disk

Preface:

WSA can take up a lot of storage space, hence you want to move it to another partition or disk with more space.
This guide goes through a method by which you can install WSA from another disk and to store the data in that drive (instead of %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe).

Prerequisites:

  • The partition/ disk that you want to move/install Windows Subsystem For Android™ to, MUST be NTFS
  • Recommended that both disks, C:/ and the disk/partition that you want to install (move) WSA on (to), are SSDs
    • HDDs may work, but performance issues may arise
  • Basic knowledge on Command Prompt (CMD) usage
  • There must be enough space on the disk/partiton that you are installing/moving WSA to (recommended 20GB, as the VHDX can become very large in size)

Note

If you want to preseve your data, make a backup of the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\userdata.vhdx file. After uninstalling, copy the VHDX file back to the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache folder.

Process:

  • Step 1: Remove all previous installations from WSABuilds or official WSA Releases

    • To remove WSA installed through WSABuild:

      • 1.) Make sure that Windows Subsystem For Android™ is not running

      • 2.) Search for Windows Subsystem For Android™ Settings using the built-in Windows Search, or through Add and Remove Programs and press uninstall

      • 3.) Delete the WSA folder that you extracted and Run.bat was run from to install WSA (MagiskOnWSA folder)

      • 4.) Go to %LOCALAPPDATA%/Packages/ and delete the folder named MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe

        • If you get an error that states that the file(s) could not be deleted, make sure that WSA is turned off

    • To remove WSA installed from the Microsoft Store:

      • 1.) Search for Windows Subsystem For Android™ Settings using the built-in Windows Search, or through Add and Remove Programs and press uninstall

  • Step 2: Install WSA from the desired partition

    • 1.) Download the latest WSA Build according to Windows Version and CPU Archtecture from Release.
    • 2.) Extract to the desired partition or drive
    • Using the same process as detailed in Installation
    • 3.) Open the extracted folder and run Run.bat

  • Step 3: Moving the AppData (VHDX + data) from your Windows drive (C:) to the desired partition/drive

    • 1.) Go to %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\ and copy the folder named MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe to the desired drive/partition, making sure to delete the folder from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\ after copying

    • 2.) Open Command Prompt (Admin) through Windows Terminal (Admin) or directly and run the command:

mklink /J "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe" "Location_Of_Folder_In_Other_Drive"

Replacing Location_Of_Folder_In_Other_Drive with the location of the folder named MicrosoftCorporationII.WindowsSubsystemForAndroid_8wekyb3d8bbwe, copied to the desired to the drive/partition in 1st point of Step 3

  • Step 4: Testing if everything is working

    • Run Windows Subsystem For Android™ Settings
      • If it crashes, you have made a mistake whilst following the guide. Try following it again.