I brought my phone back to the Windows XP golden age with this Android launcher

Every so often, I’ll stumble across an indie software project that melds together retro and modern tech in the most perfect way imaginable. Developers never cease to amaze me with their level of dedication, their attention to detail, and their craftsmanship, especially when it comes to recreating the joy associated with old-school operating systems and their respective programs.

Windows Launcher for Android, a free application available over on GitHub, is one such example: from the moment I installed its 98.7 MB APK file onto my Honor Magic V5, I was absolutely enamored with the experience it so elegantly presents on screen. Rather than haphazardly slapping together an emulated instance of Windows inside a virtual machine, Windows Launcher for Android recreates the look and feel of Microsoft’sclassic-era operating systems with new code built with touch screens and mobility in mind.

Excitingly, the project is actively being worked on, with the most recent version 1.8.7 update landing back in late November of last year. Of course, due to copywriting issues, the app isn’t available directly on the Google Play Store, but the developer says an F-Droid release might arrive sometime in the future. On the bright side, a built-in ‘Windows Update’ function is available for quickly checking and downloading new APK versions of the app as they become available.

Windows Launcher for Android is surprisingly refined

The attention to detail here is impressive

Upon installing Windows Launcher for Android and setting it as my default home screen launcher, I was greeted by Windows XP’s legendary Bliss wallpaper, the iconic Luna theming, and a desktop / taskbar / Start Menu interface design that feels both familiar and welcoming. In addition to this Windows XP style, it’s easy to swap over to a Windows 98 theme or even to a Windows Vista theme, the latter of which comes complete with the beloved Aero design language. Each theme alters the Start Menu to reflect the way it functions in its respective Windows release, which is a nice touch.

Despite older versions of Windows being designed with mouse cursor input in mind, the classic desktop UI paradigm translates well onto mobile. The Start Menu serves its job well as an app drawer replacement, and poking around the system is intuitive (albeit with small touch targets that can be difficult to hit). I also appreciate that there’s a Windows 11-esque gesture for invoking the Start Menu with a swipe up of the screen, which makes interacting with the launcher much more fluid.

Standard Android apps live inside the launcher without trouble, appearing both in the Start Menu and on the desktop itself as program icons. The developer has gone a step further, however, by including from-scratch recreations of several classic Windows apps and games, too. These bonus programs are fully functional, with adaptations made to work in the modern context (for example, the Phone Dialer can be used to make actual phone calls if you have an active SIM).

At the time of writing, the following retro apps and computer games are included as part of Windows Launcher for Android:

• Clock
• Internet Explorer
• Midtown Madness 2
• Minesweeper
• MSN Messenger
• Notepad
• Phone Dialer
• Registry Editor
• Solitaire
• Winamp
• Windows Media Player

Other niceties scattered throughout Windows Launcher for Android include ambient background music, full-blown window resizing, repositioning, and minimization to the taskbar (for the included retro apps, that is), a library of built-in screensavers and wallpapers, optional gesture-based shortcuts, date and weather integration within the taskbar, rubber banding physics while scrolling, and haptic feedback implemented throughout the system. There’s even cameos from both Clippy and Rover, two of Microsoft’s adorable cartoon companion characters from the mid-2000s.

As a full-blown home screen replacement app for Android, the launcher scales surprisingly well across different display sizes and aspect ratios, making it a good fit for book-style foldable phones. Running on the larger inner-display of my Magic V5, it’s clear that there’s something charming about having the traditional Windows desktop aesthetic available in a pocketable format. Importantly, the app manages to honor the legacy of traditional PC computing without feeling fiddly or clunky in its approach, which is certainly a feat in and of itself.

Of course, not everything is perfect: as with other Android launchers, Windows Launcher for Android suffers from imperfect compatibility with system-level gestures, resulting in broken animations when switching apps or when entering the multitasking screen. As such, I recommend switching over to 3-button navigation when running the app, as this helps smooth things out a bit during day-to-day use. There’s also the issue of the right-hand side of theStart Menu appearing slightly cut off on devices with tall and narrow aspect ratios, but this is only a visual issue and not one that impacts accessibility.

Even with its flaws in mind, Windows Launcher for Android is stable, performant, and honestly way more refined than it has any right to be. Quality-of-life considerations — including the implementation of Android’s system-level rubber banding — are much appreciated, as are the fully-functional retro apps included in the package. If the developer can somehow manage to get standard Android apps to display within the taskbar and to operate in windowed mode, I’d genuinely consider switching away from my current go-to launcher of choice, Niagara.