Understanding the Process: Installing Windows 11 on Android Devices
While the new Windows 11 can run on Android phones as a full native OS, the Renegade Project team is working on Windows 11 with the goal of developing a complete Windows operating system for Android phones.
That means you can use your phone as a laptop. An official version of Windows 11 can be installed on an Android phone with the help of the Renegade project.
Renegade Project
Renegade Project EDK2-SDM845 is a project that enables you to load any AArch845 Compatible OS/application, such as Windows, Linux, etc., on your sdm845 mobile device (to be more precise, they are Windows Boot Manager and GNU Grub).
To be honest, I'd rather call it a broken piece of software than consider it a firmware or bootloader, because its functionality is extremely limited. You can't interact with it at runtime. Also, it relies on binary executables from Qualcomm. The use of those files is suspicious. You've been warned.
EDK2-SDM845
Windows 11 will run on Android devices.
EDK2-SDM845 is a project that enables you to load any AArch845 Compatible OS/application into the UEFI bootloader on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 64. Currently it is implemented by Windows BOOTMGR and EFI Shell as UEFI applications and Linux kernels.
This project was inspired by edk2-raspberryPi, but it uses a different method: it uses the UEFI elements that exist in the EDK II tree and tries to support as many features as possible.
EDK2-SDM845 (Snapdragon 845) is a project that enables you to load any AArch64 EFI-compatible OS/application on Snapdragon 835 and 845 phones, without using proprietary firmware.
Although the project is still in the early stages, it has reached the stage where you can run Windows 11 as an EFI application on your phone!
The software is made possible using the Android bootloader (LK) and using the EDK2-SDM845 UEFI implementation. EDK2-SDM845 is a modern, feature-rich, cross-platform firmware development environment for UEFI and PI specifications from www.uefi.org. EDK II provides a building environment for the creation of UEFI and PI firmware. It includes tools for building drivers, applications, and other modules.
For those who are not familiar with EDK II or UEFI, UEFI stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is a specification for the new generation of PC firmware (or operating system loader). Although UEFI was created in 2005 as a replacement for the BIOS, almost all PCs sold today still use BIOS instead of UEFI. But this is expected to change soon as UEFI gains more traction with hardware vendors.
EDK2-SDM845 is a project that enables you to load any AArch64 EFI-compatible OS/application on Android devices powered by Snapdragon 845. The only requirement is an unlocked bootloader and a device with root access.
The goal of this project is to provide users with the ability to run their own EFI-compatible operating system, whether it's Windows, Linux, or something else. It does not replace Android in any way and does not require re-flashing your device. It can be used alongside Android and does not interfere with it.
The project consists of two components:
- A bootloader that starts the hardware and initializes the payload.
- A payload that can be changed without re-flashing the bootloader
What phone can I install Windows 11 on?
A new project called edk2-sdm845 enables you to load any AArch6 EFI-compatible OS/application on OnePlus 6 and 6T. Snapdragon 845-based phones with Windows 11 ARM, various versions of Arch Linux, and popular Android ROMs such as LineageOS and AOSP can boot without much effort.
The project is based on the UEFI firmware that was released by Qualcomm as open source for the Virtualization Extension (SVE) of the Snapdragon 835, which has also made available for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845.
The chipset manufacturer still does not provide a complete UEFI implementation for SVE, so the edk2-sdm845 uses a minimal EDK II port to create a UEFI environment that can then run an AArch64 OS/application.
The project works by replacing the stock phoneboot.img image in your device's stock ROM with an image that boots into EDK II with SVE enabled, which then loads the specified OS/application into the configuration file. Currently, you can boot up to four different operating systems on your device via the edk2-sdm845.
How to install Windows 11 on Android?
Windows 11 is the latest version of Microsoft Windows and is an OS software that enables you to install and run many different apps. While it can now be installed on an Android operating system, the process of installing Windows 11 on your Android phone may vary depending on the model, but the general steps are pretty simple.
To install Windows 11 on your Android phone, you must first have enough free space in your device's internal memory. Because Windows doesn't load all of its files into memory at once, it needs some space for its own files. Once you have enough free space, you need to download the installation program from the internet and then run it by tapping on the "Install" button.
For a step-by-step tutorial on installing Windows 11 on Android phones, you can follow these official instructions from Renegade Project Developer