The need for an emulator for Android We know that emulators can play a key part in the edit-compile-debug cycle (bigger part than devices) and we believe that you need an emulator like the one we are releasing today. When choosing one of those Android development options, Visual Studio will also install the brand new Visual Studio Emulator for Android to use as a target for debugging your app. Hyper-V requires a 64-bit version of the Pro edition of Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, or higher.įor more information about requirements, see Microsoft Visual Studio now has options for Android development: C++, Cordova, and C# with Xamarin. Requirements To run the emulator, the computer must meet the requirements to run Hyper-V. The Visual Studio Emulator for Android can be used as an alternative to the default Android SDK emulator when developing a Xamarin.Android application. This emulator uses the Hyper-V capabilities of your development computer, resulting in faster launch and execution times than the default emulator that comes with the Android SDK. Deploy, test and debug Android apps with our fast, free, and best-of-breed Android emulator Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 includes an Android emulator that can be used as a target for debugging an Xamarin.Android app: Visual Studio Emulator for Android.