oh this makes more sense: JVM apps run in Windows with some simple JVM container. Intel Bridge Technology is only needed for the apps that have compiled native code.
no, there's a new NT subsystem to support this: Windows Subsystem for Android, and as you could guess from the name, it is somewhat related to WSL.
the NT kernel was always designed to accommodate multiple subsystems running at once. Until WSL, there was only ever the Windows subsystem itself. soon there will be a third subsystem one can install.
this is neat, to me.
WSL1 is the "Linux as a subsystem of Windows" thing I described.
Note that WSL2 is not a complete upgrade from WSL1, and WSL2 does not render WSL1 obsolete. They each have strengths that the other does not.
And interestingly enough, Android support was the original purpose of WSL. It was modified to run an Ubuntu user land on original release for some Microsoft product reason. It's nice to see it coming back in it's original form too.
There is amazing depth inside parts of Microsoft. For example, a team built Xbox360-on-PC sometime around 2007-08. That was emulating the PowerPC and GPU on Intel PCs. This didn't ship for various reasons as a product, but it was in the draw when Xbox One came along and they wanted game compatibility between Xbox 360 and XBox One.
WSLv1 was built on Drawbridge that originally came from MSR. I heard a rumor that WSL was spun out from a project using Drawbridge to run Android. Obviously a lot of work went into WSL subsequently, but the pieces to get started were in place.
[1] https://source.android.com/devices/tech/dalvik/dex-format