AndroidStudioEmulator-GUIconfig

The goal of this tutorial is to install Android Studio to run apps.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Install required tools
• 2. Configure emulator
• 3. Exercise

1. Install required tools

NOTES TO LINUX USERS

• This tutorial was created with Windows OS in mind. However, appart from the installation process, the steps to set up Android Studio on Linux are the same (sections 2. and 3.).
• If you want to try the Android Studio Emulator without the GUI (to save resources), you can try this tutorial.

NOTES TO WINDOWS USERS

• The emulator installed with Android Studio requires the Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM) drivers to speed up the emulator. However, HAXM is not compatible with the “Windows Hypervisor Platform”;
• The “Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)” requires the “Windows Hypervisor Platform (WHP)” to work. Therefore, it is not possible to have both the WSL and the HAXM drivers running at the same time;
• If you want/need to have an Android emulator and WSL at the same time, you can try the Visual Studio instead of Android Studio. Visual Studio + Xamarin provides an IDE with support for running Android emulator with Hyper-V instead of HAXM (we didn’t test this solution).
• HAXM drivers are not compatible with AMD CPUs, but it’s still possible to run Android Studion Emulator in AMD processors.

Download and install the following tool:

• Android Studio

NOTE

If you need to disable the “Windows Hypervisor Platform” type “Turn Windows features on or of” in the Windows search bar, then disable the feature from the menu by removing the check mark:

Then restart your computer (this is mandatory) and follow the installation steps bellow.

If you already installed Android Studio and need to install the HAXM drivers, run: %LOCALAPPDATA%\Android\Sdk\extras\intel\Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager\intelhaxm-android.exe

To install Android Studio, follow thess steps:

• Step 1:

• Step 2

• Step 3:

• Step 4:

• Step 5:

• Step 6:

• Step 7:
  • Also check Configure hardware acceleration for the Android Emulator, and for Ubuntu Linux also check KVM installation
• Step 8:

2. Configure emulator

Once the Android Studio is installed, we need to create and configure an Android Virtual Device (AVD).

1. Open Android Studio and choose New Project:

2. In the New Project window select No Activity, and then Next:

3. On the Configure Your Project give a name to it, like MCIF-AFD2, and click Finish:
   • Wait for the installation of the packages, then press Finish.

4. The Android Studio IDE should be open now. Go to Tools → Device Manager:

5. In the Device Manager sub-window, click Create Device:

6. In the Select Hardware window, click New Hardware Profile:

7. A new windows will open, the Configure Hardware Profile:
   • give a name to the device, e.g. AFD2 Low resolution
   • chose a resolution (the lower the resolution the better the emulator performance will be), we recommend 320x640
   • activate both Input check boxes (Has Hardware ...)

   • then click Finish

   • Verify that the new devices exists, then press Next
8. In the System Image window select x86 Images, then select API Level = 30 (we don’t want the latest version because it’ll have more security features that make it harder for us to analyse apps) with ABI = x86_64 . Finaly click the down arrow next to the R letter to download the emulator files:
   • Then click Finish, and Next

NOTE

We need root access to the folders inside the emulator, therefore we cannot select a system-image with _playstore name, or symbol.

1. Now, in the Android Virtual Device (AVD) verify the configuration and click Finish:

2. The newly created AVD should now be listed in the Devices. Select it and click run (triangle under the Actions column):
   • You may detach the Devices window:
3. If everything goes ok, you should be able to see the emulator window. Notice the buttons Power, Back, Home and Overview on top of the window. Interact with the emulated Android to confirm that everything is working.

3. Exercise

After setting up the Android Studio Emulator and making sure it’s working, do the exercise listed here