Manually install Google Apps on Hyper-V Android emulator

    One of the "hot" new features of Visual Studio 2015 is the new Android Hyper-V emulator. It is an awesome feature as you have a highly performant Android emulator running on the same virtualization engine as the Windows Phone emulator. 

   It is an x86 virtual machine and similar to other Android Virtual machines like Genymotion, Xamarin Android Player the Google applications and services are not installed by default.

     For the other engines they usually support installing Google applications by drag-drop. You just have to download the Google Apps specific for the version of Android your emulator is running (you can download it from here ) and drop the package on the emulator running. For the moment this feature is not supported in the Hyper-V version (might still coming) but you can do it manually with a simple sequence of instructions. 

    

    This is what you need to do:

1. Download the GApps packages specific for the Android version your emulator is running
2. Unzip the file
3. Open an adb command prompt (if you have the Xamarin Tools installed in Visual Studio 2015 open the menu Tools->Android->Android Adb Command Prompt) and navigate where you have unzipped your files and go to the system folder from the archive.
4. Execute this set of commands:

• adb remount
• adb shell chmod 777 /system
• adb push . /system

What this commands do is remount the system partition of the emulator to be writable and pushes the contents of the system folder from the unzipped package to the system folder on the emulator. This is the only things that you have to do. Just wait a little bit and you will see that the emultator starts to install everything needed. You might need to soft reset the Hyper-V emulator to make everything work (you should be actually prompted to login with your Google account). Before pushing the System folder content you can also delete the packages that you are not using.

Let me know if you have problems or if i works via email or twitter (disabled the comments on the blog because of all the SPAM I am getting)

P.S. If the links to the google apps package are not working just copy the package name and paste it in a search engine of you choice and you will easily find a mirror for the package.

Using the Android Hyper-V Preview with Visual Studio 2013

   Happy New Year to you all! While I am anxiously waiting to know if I will be renewed today as an Microsoft MVP (btw being MVP is an awesome experience, the MVPSummit was a great experience even if I was expecting to see more new things so if you can get involved and try this experience). Still planning to do the post on BLE background agents but there are so many things to write that I have to find time to write it. Hopefully this will happen soon.
    So this small post is all about running the Android Hyper-V Preview Emulator that comes with the Visual Studio 2015 Preview as a stand-alone emulator and use it with your production machine running Visual Studio 2013 and the Xamarin tools. Even if the emulator is still in preview if you are doing Android and Windows Phone development on the same machine you won't have to reboot your machine without Hyper-V support in order to have a decent Android emulator. Strangely Microsoft decided for this preview that the emulator can install only if you have the preview of Visual Studio 2015. In theory you could run the preview along with Visual Studio 2013 but things are not always perfect so many of you will keep two different instances for VS 2013 and the Preview. In oreder to get the emulator work you will still have to install the preview of Visual Studio 2015 on some virtual machine or secondary machine and copy the needed files.
    The method is pretty simple. All you will need to do is to copy the folder "Microsoft Visual Studio Emulator for Android" that is located inside Program Files (x86) [ %PROGRAMFILES(X86)%] folder to the machine you want to run the emulator on. At this point you have everything you need. Copy the folder at the same location on the other machine. We still need to take two steps before launching the emulator for the first time. Inside the folder that you've just copied there are two files vsemu.vhd and sdcard.vhd that will be used to "generate" the two virtual machines (phone and tablet). Here are the two steps that you have to take:

1.  Make sure that adb.exe is in your Path as it will be used by XDE.exe
2. Create a new folder called Android inside the folder "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XDE" and copy the two vhd each of them two times with the following names:

     vsemu.vhd copied as: vsemulator.phone.android.vhd and vsemulator.tablet.android.vhd
     sdcard.vhd copied as vsemulator.phone.android.sdcard.vhd and vsemulator.tablet.android.sdcard.vhd

     Now we are ready to start the emulator. You won't be able to start the emulator from Visual Studio 2013 the way VS 2015 Preview does but you can start it manually and once you've started it and the adb automatically connects to the emulator you will see it in Visual Studio as a deployable device. Let's not mention that you can actually use the accelerometer, the location, battery simulation and the screenshot (awesome).

     Here are the two commands that you need to run (make a batch on your desktop):

Phone Android Emulator:
"%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio Emulator for Android\1.0\XDE.exe" /name "VS Emulator Android - Phone" /vhd %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XDE\Android\vsemulator.phone.android.vhd /video "720x1280" /memsize 1024 /telemetrySession "14.0;eyJBcHBJZCI6MTAwMSwiRGVmYXVsdENvbnRleHRJZCI6ImJkNmMxNjk2LTQ5ZjUtNDI4My1iZTk2LWUzNGNjZWYwZTA4YSIsIkhvc3ROYW1lIjoiRGV2MTQiLCJJZCI6ImIyOWZlODMwLThhOWMtNDE1Yy04MWExLWFlNTFkNzFiYTUwNSIsIklzT3B0ZWRJbiI6dHJ1ZSwiUHJvY2Vzc1N0YXJ0VGltZSI6NjM1NTU2MTAxODUyMjI0MzA1fQ=="

Tablet Android Emulator:
"%PROGRAMFILES(X86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio Emulator for Android\1.0\XDE.exe" /name "VS Emulator Android - Tablet" /vhd %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XDE\Android\vsemulator.tablet.android.vhd /video "1080x1920" /memsize 2048 /telemetrySession "14.0;eyJBcHBJZCI6MTAwMSwiRGVmYXVsdENvbnRleHRJZCI6ImJkNmMxNjk2LTQ5ZjUtNDI4My1iZTk2LWUzNGNjZWYwZTA4YSIsIkhvc3ROYW1lIjoiRGV2MTQiLCJJZCI6ImIyOWZlODMwLThhOWMtNDE1Yy04MWExLWFlNTFkNzFiYTUwNSIsIklzT3B0ZWRJbiI6dHJ1ZSwiUHJvY2Vzc1N0YXJ0VGltZSI6NjM1NTU2MTAxODUyMjI0MzA1fQ==" /noStart

You won't probably need the /telemetrySession but this way you could give back some feedback (I guess). Also the first time you run the emulator it will ask permission to configure the Internet on the device and of course you will have to accept.

Also while digging to make this work I found out that the source code of the Android Preview Emulator is published here:  http://aka.ms/getsource . In the same place there is also the source code for the Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. It looks like it is running on Linux kernel with a pretty decent CPU and we might get some new features other than a simple Miracast adapter.

Until my next blog post: NAMASTE and again HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR!

How to add songs to the emulator's MediaLibrary

    One of the new features of the Windows Phone 8 SDK is the ability to save(add) songs to the phone's MediaLibrary. This is a really nice when you add songs to the MediaLibrary any other music application that you have installed on your phone can play the songs that your application has saved.. The SaveSong method is found in the MediaLibraryExtensions class. Here are the parameters of this method:

[ExtensionAttribute]

public static Song SaveSong (
         MediaLibrary library,
         Uri filename,
         SongMetadata songMetadata,
         SaveSongOperation operation
)

    The method requires the ID_CAP_MEDIALIB_AUDIO capability and will return a reference to the newly saved song. One of the things that the documentation forgot to mention is that the filename Uri has to be an Uri to a file on the IsolatedStorage. You cannot give a direct Uri to an asset file (this I think because using the SaveSongParameter you can choose if you want to copy or move the file to the MediaLibrary) as you will get InvalidOperationException. If you want to add a song deployed as an asset you will first have to copy the file to the IsolatedStorage and then save it to the MediaLibrary.

    To copy the file to the IsolatedStorage you can use the:

 var resource = Application.GetResourceStream(new Uri(@"Assets/Songs/"+fileName, UriKind.Relative));  
 resource.Stream.CopyTo(fileStream, 4096);  

or you can use the WinRT Api to read the asset file:

  songUri=new Uri("ms-appx:///Assets/Songs/"+fileName,UriKind.Absolute);  
  var file=await Windows.Storage.StorageFile.GetFileFromApplicationUriAsync(songUri);  

 
    One interesting parameter is the SongMetadata. This enables you to "mess" with the metadata that will be saved to the MediaLibrary. If this parameter is null then the function will automatically import the file's metadata. If you still want to verify/import just some of the files metadata you can use the PCL ID3.NET and read the metadata of the file you have on the Isolated Storage. The portble dll is Id3.dll. You just have to pass the Stream to the Mp3Stream method:

 Id3.Mp3Stream mp3 = new Id3.Mp3Stream(resource.Stream);  
 if (mp3.HasTags)  
 {  
 }  

NAMASTE

Saving the Windows Phone 8 Emulator State

    Saving the emulator state between runs was one of the feature needed for the Windows Phone emulator, but till now it is not officially supported. It even makes more sense now when the Windows Phone 8 emulator is a full working operating system and not a trimmed one like Windows Phone 7/7.5 was. You could configure an email account, personalize the start screen, install some applications, install certificates or even save the state of an application that requires a lot of data to synchronize before the actual debugging and have everything ready the next time you start the emulator.

   Today I was trying to run the Windows Phone 8 emulator on a Parallels 8 machine using this post because I hate Windows 8 performance in Bootcamp (the disk access is crappy and the UEFI mode still needs drivers for sound, video and a way to enable Hyper-V). I observed that the first time you run an Windows Phone emulator it took more than 40 seconds to start. The reason is that the SDK creates a new Virtual Machine in Hyper-V and saves a "clean" snapshot of it.

       On every subsequent run of that emulator the XDE automatically starts the virtual machine and immediately applies the snapshot (or starts the virtual machine from the snapshot directly). What caught my attention was the name of the snapshot for each virtual machine: 

1. Emulator 720P - snapshot.720x1280.1024
2. Emulator WVGA 512MB - snapshot.480x800.512
3. Emulator WVGA - snapshot.480x800.1024
4. Emulator WXGA - snapshot.768x1280.1024

     I tried and messed up the names and observed that XDE, if it doesn't see a certain Snapshot, it starts the Virtual Machine and creates a new snapshot with the required name. So in order to save the state it would be enough to alter/change the snapshot XDE uses to start the virtual machine. 

      First we need to start the emulator we want to personalize (in this post i will mess up the 512 WVGA emulator). This can be done in two ways:

1. From Visual Studio by running a program on that emulator or from Application Deployment (the emulator is easy to personalize because you can zoom the content and you have the hardware buttons but will require a subsequent reset of the Virtual Machine from Hyper-V) 
2. From Hyper-V manager by starting the Emulator WVGA 512MB virtual machine and applying the saved snapshot for a fast start. After the machine starts you will have to connect to it:

    Once connected to the emulator/virtual machine you can personalize/modify the way you want it to be. If you connected using Hyper-V these keyboard shortcuts will prove helpful (they also work in the emulator):

• F1 - the same as pressing the back button
• F2 – the same as pressing the home button
• PageUp  - enables physical keyboard and minimizes the software keyboard
• PageDown – disables physical keyboard and maximizes the software keyboard
• F9 - volume up
• F10 - volume down
• F7 – invoke camera
• F3 – invoke Bing search

If you want/need to install some xap's you can use Application Deployment with the Emulator. 

When you've reached the desired state go to the Hyper-V manager, select the Virtual machine that you are personalizing and hit Snapshot. This will create a new Snapshot(save state for the emulator).

If you've started the emulator from Visual Studio or Application Deployment App before you create the snapshot you will have to connect to the Virtual Machine from Hyper-V and from the menu Action select Reset (this will clean the ports used for debugging and the state you will save will be usable for Visual Studio and XDE).

After saving the new state the only thing you have to do is to rename the snapshot with the same name of the parent snapshot and delete the parent by right-clicking on it and select Delete Snapshot (DO NOT select Delete Snapshot Subtree).

You are now ready to go:  Turn Off the virtual machine from Hyper-V and try it from Visual Studio. Everything should work. If it doesn't it means that the state has some ports that Visual Studio uses still opened and in this case you will have to connect to the Virtual Machine from Hyper-V, Reset the machine from Action and save a new Snapshot.

My personalized emulator looks like this:

If you want to get back to an "unaltered" state just delete the snapshot of the corresponding Virtual Machine from Hyper-V Manager.

Hope saving the emulator state will help you in some scenarios.

NAMASTE!

Windows Phone 8 inside VMWare

    More than a month ago some Microsoft guy in Asia made a terrible mistake and the LKG25 of Windows Phone 8 SDK leaked to the web. As I am not one of the lucky people that are the development program (as Mary Jo Foley suspected in a tweet and I believe it is true) I was more than happy when I got my hands onto the leaked version. At start I wanted to start blogging about the news that Windows Phone 8 will bring, but then I decided that it wouldn't be fair so I will wait until the official SDK. This post is not intended as a spoiler of any feature from WP8, but more like a proof of concept.
    I am sure many of you read on twitter that the new emulator is a virtual x86 machine and it comes with the virtual hard drive (.vhd file) divided on the screen resolutions.
    The idea came to me today while I was installing a clean virtual machine for development. Till now developing in a virtual machine for Windows Phone and debugging on the emulator with a decent speed/quality was impossible as you would have a virtual machines inside a virtual machine that degrades the performance exponentially. So what if you could have the development environment inside a virtual machine and then the emulator on another virtual machine that runs side by side and communicate on TCP/IP. In this case the performance of the emulator would be good (as it is not a vm inside a vm) and also the speed of the development environment would be acceptable. The virtual machine for the emulator would need 512MB or a maximum of 1GB.
     So the first thing I did is to install a trial version of VMWare Workstation 9 (should work with VMWare Fusion and also Parallels/VirtualBox). Then I have used WinIMAGE to convert the Flash.vhd file to Flash.vmdk which is the format that VMWare uses and created a virtual machine where I've attached the newly created vmdk.

     The good news is that the virtual machine works in VMWare right from the start. Not everything works (more decent is to say that some things work :) ) but hey it runs and I did nothing. The networking is not working but the most annoying part is the mouse pointer which is invisible in the virtual machine so I am blind pressing the mouse and at some point I am able to hit some buttons as you can see in the video :

More important than what this video shows (which is almost nothing) is what it could mean (even if I doubt we will see any of these in the near feature)

• Theoretically developing for Windows Phone 8 on Windows 7 should be possible and not so hard to achieve (the partition where I installed Vmware Workstation runs Windows 7)

• With some collaboration between Microsoft and VMWare/Parallels it would be possible to develop on a virtual machine and debug/deploy on the emulator which is another virtual machine. This would be great for Mac users but also for everyone (I might say like me) that likes to keep his development environments clean and separated from each other (I have a VM with VS2008 and Compact Framework, soon VS2010 will pass in a virtual machine too, I don't want to install VS2010 on my Windows 8 partition etc.)

• The emulator is an x86 virtual machine so it shouldn't be so hard to achieve plug-gable hardware into the emulator (like connect the webcam to the emulator camera, storage card to an USB key or shared folder, NFC hardware - here I might be mistaking but should be a serial connection after all). It would give us a better development environment.

P.S. Seeing that it is a virtual machine I beg the team which is in charge of the emulator to SAVE the emulator/virtual machine state between resets. It is really annoying to always start from 0 and none of the other major mobile platforms has this limitation.

Till next time NAMASTE to you my reader.

WP7 Emulator Tip: Use your hardware keyboard

   Yesterday at MWC I was telling Bryan Agnetta how frustrating it is not to be able to use you hardware keyboard to input text in the Emulator and he told me that as long as he knows there is some shortcut that enables the hardware keyboard in the emulator. Searching with google I've found a post on Brad Tutterow's blog and in fact you can use PgUp to enable the hardware keyboard in the emulator. Hope this tip will help you as much as it helps me. No more frustration...:)

 Here are all the shortcuts:

Page up / page down: Toggle between the software keyboard on the emulator and the hardware keyboard on your development machine.  While using your machine’s keyboard, you can TAB between fields.

F1: Back

F2: Start

F3: Search

WP7 Emulator "Unlocked"

I still cannot believe it but I did it... After a good idea, 6 hours of work and a lot a lot of digging I've unlocked the ROM image in the emulator CTP. I will describe tomorrow the method but right now I will just post some screenshots, upload the bin somewhere so I can give you the link and go to sleep cause it's almost 2 o'clock in the morning.


I will also test it better tomorrow put I saw that it has a file explorer :) and a VERY nice task manager:

I have decided to take down the link because Microsoft could get upset and I don't really want that (if someone at Microsoft will tell me that it doesn't bother them I will put it back).

Anyway I will explain later how I was able to do it (cause it was done for educational purposes only) and I think this won't cause me problems. Right? :)