Is it possible to Root Visual Studio Emulator Android?

Question

I am currently using 'Visual Studio Emulator for Android' to run android apps on my computer, i find that after using multiple types of emulators bluestacks, genymotion, andy etc. That VS is the most stable and easy-to-use out of them all.

The only problem that i have compared to the other emulators is running apps that require root permission, with this being an emulator i know that its not possible to go the route of rooting via fastboot/recovery, this is the only method i know of rooting as thats how i normally do it on my phone.

I have tried most of the 'rooting' APK's (kingo,towel,frama etc) and none of those have worked.

So would anybody happen to know how i can get root access on Visual Studio Android Emulator?

I am trying to run a touch-replication app (Frep & RepetiTouch) but all of them seem to require root access.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

Yes, you can. Here are some basics before the steps. Fundamentally all Visual Studio Emulator has root access; if you do adb shell you will get a root prompt. The only thing that is missing is the su binary and access for applications to connect to root shell through su. You can get the su binary from superuser apk from clockworkmod and the access to the root shell through the su daemon.

Installing su binary

1. Download superuser apk from clockworkmod. Ideal way is to download the app from google play store and navigate to /data/app/ and copy com.koushikdutta.superuser to your pc through adb pull /data/app/com.koushikdutta.superuser <local_path_in_your_system>
2. Change the .apk extension to .zip.

3. Navigate to assets/x86/ and copy the su binary to /system/xbin in your emulator

   adb push <location_of_su> /system/xbin
   

4. chmod with suid and rwx

       adb shell
       chmod 6777 /system/xbin/su
   

5. symlink to /system/bin

       ln -s /system/xbin/su /system/bin/su
   

6. Run the su daemon

   /system/xbin/su --daemon
   

Giving Access to Applications through su

1. Install the superuser binary by either dragging and dropping into the emulator or using adb install <path_to_superuser_apk>
2. Download rootchecker free\basic or even a terminal emulator for that matter. We just want to check if our device is rooted.
3. Run the rootchecker app to check root and you should be able to get the prompt from superuser.