Visual Studio Emulator for Android - Install Gapps (Google Play Services)

Question

I'm using the new VS Android Emulator with Android Studio:

https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/features/msft-android-emulator-vs.aspx

It doesn't have Google Play Services installed... so I'm following this guide to install:

https://university.xamarin.com/resources/how-to-install-google-play-on-android-emulator

I've downloaded the proper Gapps file (in my case):

http://www.devfiles.co/download/7m2VdVjQ/gapps-kk-20140105-signed.zip

Now I've dragged and dropped the ZIP file onto the emulator... and it's just stalled at "copying file"... Is there anything else I need to be doing here in order to get Gapps installed? How long does this "install" usually take?

Answer 1

I was trying it out yesterday myself and had the same problem. Apparently, non of the drag and drop functionality worked. So this, is what I did to resolve the issue:

1. Use the Additional Tools (small >> icon) for the emulator and go to the SD Card tab.
2. Select a folder on your computer to sync with the virtual SD card.
3. Pull from SD card, which will create a folder structure on the selected folder.
4. Now copy the Gapps fill to the 'Download' folder.
5. Push to SD card. This will take a little while, and copy the zip file to your emulator.
6. Run a commmand prompt, and go to sdk\platform-tools in your Android SDK location and run adb devices.
7. If you see the your emulator in the list, then skip to step 9.
8. If you do not see emulator, run the following: adb connect <emulator ip>:5555 You can find the emulator ip, from within the emulator, go to Settings -> About Phone -> Status and IP section.
9. Next run, adb shell. This will give you a prompt to the android emulator.
10. Confirm the gapps file is there: ls /sdcard/Download
11. Now run, install_zip.sh /sdcard/Download/<flashablezip>.zip This should begin the flashing process.

Hope this helps in resolving the issue.