Installing Android-x86 on Hyper-V With Windows 8.1 in Under 5 Minutes

Installing Android-x86 on Hyper-V with Windows 8.1 inunder 5 minutes

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Posted December 12, 2013 by Patrick Kennedy in Software

This guide will show one how to install Android-x86 in Hyper-V. We will be using Android 4.3 as our base

installation version and using a Windows 8.1 Professional as a host. One great thing about Windows 8 and

Windows 8.1 is that Microsoft has enabled a fairly robust version of Hyper-V even it their workstation operating

system. The benefit of this is that building development instances is a simple task. In fact, a decently powered

workstation or laptop can have multiple virtual machines open at a given time.

Installing Android onto a Hyper-V Virtual Machine

The guide to installing Android on Hyper-V should take only a few minutes to accomplish.

Step 1: Preparing the Hyper-V Host

The first step in getting this to work is to ensure that the host Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 machine has

Hyper-V installed. We have a simple Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Hyper-V guide that works with both versions

of the desktop operating system. If Hyper-V is installed either on Windows 8, or a Windows Server/ Hyper-V

server, then you are all set and can log into the Hyper-V management console.

One major consideration is which version of Android will you run. For this guide we are going to use an

Adroid-x86 build. Further, we decided to use an Android 4.3 version. The reason for this is quite simple,

networking in previous versions was very painful because Ethernet did not work out of the box. Android 4.3

changed this and Android 4.4 and newer should also. You can get Android from here: http://www.android-

x86.org/download

The next step is quite simple, setting up a new virtual machine. You can simply follow the Linux on Hyper-V

guide to set up the VM. The major caveat here is that you do need to utilize the Legacy Ethernet adapter which

you can find an example of here. The only major difference is that you will load the Android-x86 iso instead of

another operating system.

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Android-x86 Hyper-V Legacy Network Adapter

Total time for this should be about 3 minutes if using the guides and about 90 seconds if you have ever used

Hyper-V before. The good news is, it is simple to get the host setup.

Step 2: Installing Android

Luckily, Android has a fairly simple installation method if one has ever used a text based Linux installer. At this

point you can continue to use the LiveCD shown here, but that is not optimal since we may want a persistent

development instance. For this guide we are going to install the image to a disk so we will pick the “Installation

– Install Android-x86 to harddisk” option. One reason for the above screen capture is that the system will go

into LiveCD mode if one does not select installation within 60 seconds. There are a few simple click-through

screens which are very obvious so we will skip some of them in the interest of download speeds.


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Android-x86 on Hyper-V Boot Screen

Of course to install Android we need a drive to install it on. For this, we will go to Create/Modify partitions.

Android-x86 on Hyper-V Create and Modify Partitions

That brings up perhaps the most non-intuitive part of the installation, cfdisk. For those unfamiliar cfdisk will

format the virtual hard drive so that Android can be installed. Here you can see we are using a vhd that is

around 4GB in size.


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Android-x86 on Hyper-V Select Partition

Here is the command sequence to utilize:

New1.

Primary2.

Bootable3.

Write4.

Quit5.

Just before hitting quit the screen should look like the below. It may differ based on disk size but that is OK.


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Android-x86 on Hyper-V Create and Modify Partitions – New Primary Boot

Now that we have a proper partition sda1 we can now install it by clicking OK.

Android-x86 on Hyper-V Select Created Partition

Now we will select ext3 for the file system. There are many other options, but ext3 works.


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Android-x86 on Hyper-V Select Created Partition and ext3

Once that is complete, we will need GRUB as our boot loader. Click yes.

Android-x86 on Hyper-V Install GRUB

At this point you can either reboot or just run Android-x86. Usually it is easiest to just run but rebooting can be

good if you wish to make any minor virtual machine tweaks, such as replacing the network adapter with a legacy

adapter if you skipped that part in step 1.


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Android-x86 on Hyper-V Run

Once Android 4.3 boots, you will see the standard Android setup. There are a few caveats, mainly that you will

encounter two error messages. The first is that Bluetooth share has stopped. This is fine since we do not have a

Bluetooth device in the virtual machine.

Android-x86 on Hyper-V Setup – Bluetooth Share

Next, when it comes to selecting Wi-Fi you will get another error message. There is no wireless adapter in the

virtual machine so you can click Skip anyway here.


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Android-x86 on Hyper-V Setup – WiFi Error

Once setup is complete (you can log into you Google account or create a new one and etc.), you are ready to

go!


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Android running on Hyper-V

It should be noted some applications from Google Play do not work on Android-x86 which is a bummer.

Hopefully with Intel Bay Trail hitting the tablet scene things will soon change and more applications will have

x86 binaries. The major gotcha here is that if the screen goes into power save mode, there is no real way to

wake it up. I would strongly suggest raising the sleep limit to at least 30 minutes (which can be done through the

Settings UI).

That is it! This should have taken no more than 5 minutes for experienced users and under 10 for newcomers.

Microsoft Hyper-V is working very well and this is an interesting alternative to either the development Android

emulator or a solution such as Bluestacks.

Related posts:

How to Install Windows 8 Hyper-V in Under 3 Minutes1.

How to Run Ubuntu in Windows 8 Hyper-V Quickly2.

How to Run CentOS in Windows 8 Hyper-V Quickly3.

Windows 8 iSCSI Initiator Setup in Under 3 Minutes4.

Installing Windows 8 Using USB Drive5.

Install FreeNAS in Hyper-V: Part 2 Installing FreeNAS to a vhd6.

android

About the Author

Patrick Kennedy

Patrick has been running ServeTheHome since 2009 and covers a wide variety of home

and small business IT topics. For his day job, Patrick is a management consultant focused

in the technology industry and has worked with numerous large hardware and storage

vendors in the Silicon Valley. The goal of STH is simply to help users find some

information about basic server building blocks. If you have any helpful information please

feel free to post on the forums.

More articles by Patrick Kennedy »

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6 Comments

Leave a comment »

Jeggs

December 12, 2013 at 2:35 pm

I didn’t know you could do that! Nice.

Reply

1.

Brian

December 13, 2013 at 6:58 am

I’m still having problem with the Network Settings / Wi-Fi. I follow the steps here:

http://www.servethehome.com/install-freenas-hyperv-part-1-basic-configuration/

And still can’t get a Wi-Fi connection. Any other suggestions?

Reply

Brian

December 13, 2013 at 7:06 am

More info on my error…when I make the new virtual network, it errors out saying BIND FAILED

(Out of Paper) The printer is out of paper.

For real! What’s up with that?

Reply

2.


10 sur 10 06/01/2014 14:23

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Installing Android-x86 on Hyper-V With Windows 8.1 in Under 5 Minutes