You can now turn any PC gaming handheld into an Xbox Ally

Every handheld's potentially an Ally if it's running Windows 11 and you've got time to tweak it

Xbox Ally X floating in a grey room
(Image credit: Xbox)
Carrie Marshall's avatar
By
published
in News
Quick Summary

Windows gamers have found a way to enable the Xbox Full Screen Experience on Windows 11 handhelds, and it's simple to do.

That means you can turn the likes of the original Asus ROG Ally and MSI Claw into an Xbox handheld.

If you can't wait for the release of the Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X next month, it turns out that you can get the full Xbox Ally experience without having to shell out for a new handheld. All you need is the latest Windows 11 Release Preview.

The Xbox Ally hardware is designed to get your game on instantly, and to do that it bypasses Windows' Explorer and launches into the Xbox app instead.

That means faster gaming gratification, and it also delivers a memory boost because Explorer, the Windows Desktop and other unneeded bits and bobs aren't being loaded at startup.

But as The Verge reports, you can enable this mode in multiple handheld gaming PCs too, including the MSI Claw range and Asus' original ROG Ally handhelds. And it's fairly easy to do.

How to enable Xbox Full Screen Experience on a Windows handheld

There's a full guide on enabling the full screen experience on Reddit, and of course the usual caveats apply: this isn't an officially supported tweak so anything you do is at your own risk. But it's not hugely complicated.

First of all, you need Windows 11 25H2. That's currently a Release Preview in Windows Insider.

Once you've installed that, the option you need may be there in Settings > Gaming > Full screen experience. If you're unlucky you'll need to use a third party tool, Vive, and make some changes in the Windows Registry.

Enabling the Full Screen Experience doesn't stop you from using your handheld as a normal Windows device – you can go into the Desktop mode and/or launch Windows apps other than the Xbox one and your games.

As for the new handhelds, they're coming in just a few weeks now. The ROG Xbox Ally X and ROG Xbox Ally will launch on 16 October.

Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.