Earlier this year, Microsoft and Asus announced the ROG Xbox Ally, an update to the first-gen ROG Ally, now adorned with Xbox branding. Along with the new name came new specs, but more importantly, the Xbox partnership wasn’t just a token collaboration — rather, a deeply integrated experience finally meant to "fix" Windows on handheld devices. Hence, the ROG Xbox Ally would ship with a new full-screen Xbox app that it would boot into by default, superseding Windows 11 entirely. This was exclusive to the ROG Xbox Ally and was supposed to come to other handhelds later; however, it seems the opposite has happened.
The Verge's Tom Warren reports that the full-screen Xbox experience meant for ROG Xbox Ally devices has leaked early, and can now be installed on any handheld running Windows. The actual ROG Xbox Ally is set to launch next month, which means that everyone else will get to enjoy Microsoft's new handheld gaming mode before the very device that was set to debut it. There's a full guide on Reddit that breaks down how to install it, and it's relatively easy to follow as long as you know your way around Windows. If you have a regular Ally, Lenovo's Legion Go, or the myriad of PC handhelds out there, you should be eligible.
Guide for enabling the Full screen experience on the ROG Ally (and other handhelds) from r/ROGAlly
The only requirement for this to work is the 25H2 Windows 11 update, for which you need to be part of the Windows Insider program. The build resides in the Release Preview channel, so once you've got that going, there are a few registry edits you need to make if you don't see the "Enter full-screen experience on start up" toggle right away. After all is said and done, a restart should boot you directly into the new Xbox experience, where all your favorite games should be consolidated into one place — including stores like Steam, Epic Games, and Battle.net.
The full-screen handheld mode is still based on Windows 11, just running without any of the extra stuff that hogs up resources in the background. It should use less memory, and the UI should be a lot more handheld-friendly. Windows Central tested the update on an original ROG Ally and saw marked improvements across the board in terms of performance—going from 29 FPS in Shadow of the Tomb Raider to 38 FPS—and even an extra hour gained in battery life. These upgrades mostly come courtesy of disabling unnecessary background processing and startup apps, not some significant underlying change to the Windows kernel itself.
It's important to note that you're not locked into the full-screen experience either; the ability to Alt-Tab out of apps and go into the regular desktop environment is still there. That being said, Microsoft itself recommends using mouse and keyboard for that since it's not designed for handhelds.
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