Saturday, August 31, 2013

Running Android 4.3 in Hyper-V

To make testing easier, we wanted to run Android on our desktop. Because we develop on Windows 8, the obvious choice is to run Android in Hyper-V, since that already comes with Windows 8. In this post we describe how we did it and what we found.

Get started

There is a ready made iso image available on android-x86.org. We want the latest, so we choose the Android-x86-4.3-devel image from July 25.

Next,  we create a Hyper-V standard virtual machine without any OS settings that has the following specifications:

  • 1 CPU
  • 512MB memory
  • 32GB virtual harddisk (a bit large, but who cares)
  • Legacy Network Adapter connected to an external virtual switch
  • DVD mapped to the downloaded iso image

Installation

We fire up the virtual machine and the following boot screen appears:


We select the Installation option. Next, several questions are asked, mainly about harddisk partitioning. We create a single partition for our entire virtual harddisk and make it bootable. The installation completes quickly afterwards.

First start

When we run Android for the first time, this boot screen appears:


We let the timer run out and continue with the boot process. The root prompt appeares for a short period, after which the the graphical environment shows up:


Since this is the first time, we have to go through the standard Android first time settings such as user accounts, WiFi and so on. Since we have connected to a (virtual) legacy network adapter, we skip the WiFi part. Finally we reach an empty but familiar homescreen:

Deploy and Run dot42 apps

Now it is time to deploy and run a dot42 app on our fresh virtual Android. We use the dot42 Device Center to connect to a networked device. We use Settings - About - Network on the virtual machine to get its IP address and enter that in the dot42 Device Center.


After that the virtual machine is visible in the Device Center and we can develop with it. We take the SpinningCube sample and here is how it looks:


It ran pretty smoothly, atleast a lot better than in the emulator.

Tips and tricks

Here are a couple tips and tricks we found out in the process:
  1. Bamboo tablets do not work as mouse in Android inside Hyper-V, we had to connect a normal mouse instead.
  2. Pressing Alt-Left or Alt-Right when inside Android-X86 will switch between the graphical UI and the root console.
  3. One time we had to reset the virtual machine after Android went to sleep. We tried all recommended key combinations, but nothing worked. After that we used the developer setting in Android to prevent sleeping.



Posted by at

18 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 1, 2013 at 8:55 AM

    Ewout,
    Did you test async/await in this Android emulator? I had crashes with it when running on Intel HAXM virtual Android x86, and under Genymotion, while on Android devices it worked fine. I hope you'll use this VM to debug async/await on Intel versions of Android.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ewout PrangsmaSeptember 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM

      Hi Greg, Yes I've tested it an there is indeed a problem. However it turned out that the problem was not x86 related, but rather single CPU related.
      We've fixed it and we'll release a fix on Monday.
      Ewout

      Delete
  2. UnknownSeptember 1, 2013 at 2:25 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 1, 2013 at 2:27 PM

    Great, thank you, Ewout, will test at once. Good job! One more wish list item, of which I wrote in email but not in blog comments, is the ability to create some kind of library or "jar" from C# code, and use it from within a regular Java Android app. Reason is that I have an existing app in Java, and a slick C# library that I'd like to use with it to add some functionality. I know that I can create another APK with C# service and call there from Java app, but such setup is clunky and slow, requires users to download and install the extra APK etc. You have an opportunity here to do something, which Xamarin won't be ever able to achieve...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownSeptember 4, 2013 at 11:18 PM

      This is the next major stop on our feature roadmap.

      Delete
  4. pungggiSeptember 14, 2013 at 6:50 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. pungggiSeptember 14, 2013 at 7:45 PM

    I cannot start the image, it says:

    NO DEFAULT OR UI CONFIGURATION DIRECTIVE FOUND

    Any idea?
    I already tried this>http://www.geekzground.com/index/?p=27

    But it comes to Boot failure..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ewout PrangsmaSeptember 17, 2013 at 10:37 AM

      Sounds like an error in the iso (of AndroidX86) itself.
      Did you download the same as indicated above?
      Ewout

      Delete
    2. Andreas G.November 28, 2013 at 5:50 AM

      Download just hung up for me, that is probably what happened there. Check file size and if in doubt the SHA1 Checksum. Then download again if the file is corrupt.

      Delete
  6. UnknownSeptember 19, 2013 at 3:21 PM

    Hello,

    Is there a way to connect to an emulator running on a different PC? For example, I have my dev environment on my desktop pc and would like to connect to an emulator running on a laptop. Both machines are in local network.

    Thanx in advance!

    br

    Rok

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownOctober 12, 2013 at 3:08 PM

    Hello,

    I use Virtualbox. I installed the android-x86-4.3-20130725 and it works.
    But if I try to connect via WiFi to this virtual machine in android device center, it show message "unable to connect to 192.x.x.x:5555:5555".
    x:5555:5555 ? 2 ports, is that a bug or incorrect log?
    I have the same problem if connect to my Samsung S3 via WiFi. The message is eqal.
    But there I use USB Debugging. It works.
    Can I generally use Virtualbox?
    How can I see in android-x86-4.3-20130725 VPC correct IP is set?

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownOctober 25, 2013 at 9:57 AM

    The double 5555:5555 is the problem. An old version incorrectly saved the port number with the ip. We expect a new release next Tuesday that recognizes this and strips the extra 5555. Can you search the registry for key DeviceConnectionAddress and tell me what the value is?

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownDecember 25, 2013 at 5:45 PM

    The DeviceConnectionAddress value in registry is 192.x.x.x. Like set by >dot42>Select device>Connect via WiFi.
    dot42 is updated to 1.0.1.78
    The log write 192.x.x.x:5555:5555

    Any idea?
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownJanuary 16, 2014 at 6:50 PM

    please explain the developer settings to prevent the android emulation from sleeping. thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  11. UnknownFebruary 2, 2014 at 11:27 AM

    I can hardly find words to express how thankful I am for posting this information! very useful!

    Ipad Applications development

    Android Development

    HIPPA Certified Software

    medical software Development

    EHR integrations

    ReplyDelete
  12. waleedFebruary 19, 2014 at 2:22 PM

    when i try to access the Gallary and many other Apps it crashs, any idea why?

    ReplyDelete
  13. adolDecember 24, 2014 at 10:05 AM

    Hello
    Is there any solution about the double port problem ?

    C:\Program Files\dot42\Android\Platform-Tools\adb.exe connect 192.168.56.1:5555
    unable to connect to 192.168.56.1:5555:5555

    I'm using Android Device Center 1.0.1.81
    thanks

    ReplyDelete
  14. UnknownJanuary 6, 2015 at 6:08 AM

    Ewout,
    Simply needed to say thanks for your great post on Hyper V and Android x86.I don't think I would have ever figured out you expected to delete the synthetic network adapter before the legacy adapter would work.In spite of the fact that Android 4.3 works OK on my machine (Win 8.1 64),I get no sound and commonly applications crash.I assume this is not out of the ordinary since Android 4.3 x86 is in development.Thanks again for a great article and your assistance.

    best games

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)