Recent articles estimate Android's worldwide marketshare on phones is greater than 70%, and that it has surpased the marketshare of Apple on tablets. So when will it appear on the Desktop? It may eventually come...

Do you wish you could run your favorite Android apps from the comfort of your Windows computer?

As a PC enthusiast and desktop user, nothing is more frustrating than sitting down with my smartphone and finding an app that I really enjoy. Chances are, that app doesn’t offer any native desktop version. An app like Kik comes to mind. Kik is a great messaging service for your smartphone, but there’s no native way to use Kik from a laptop or desktop. You have to use an emulator.
You’ve probably heard of BlueStacks before, and if you haven’t then you’re missing out on the most popular Android emulator for PC. Using BlueStacks, you can completely emulate Android in a window on your Windows computer. Ever used VirtualBox, a tool for running virtual machines? It’s extremely similar, but tailored only to the Android platform.
An issue that has really eaten away at me is that I cannot get BlueStacks to install properly on my Windows 8 desktop. Therefore, I’ve had to look for a few BlueStacks alternatives. Windroy is one of the nicest that I’ve come to find.

Download Windroy

I’ve only given Windroy a spin on my Windows 8 machine, but I’ve read all around the internet that it seems to also be working just fine on Windows Vista and 7. The current download is being hosted through Google Docs and is just over 80 MB in size.

Winroy

Upon launching Windroy, you’ll first see that it pops out a window that looks very similar to the Windows Command Prompt. This window acts as a log for what is going on in your emulator (which will pop out in another window). Any errors and other important events are reported here, and you’ll need to keep this window open.

Winroy

The first difference you’ll notice is that, unlike any other emulator that you’ve probably tried (such as BlueStacks or YouWave), Windroy launches in a fullscreen mode. The first thing you should see is a typical Android lock screen, as displayed above. Again, this isn’t very typical. You won’t see it with many other emulators, but Windroy really emulates the entire Android experience.

Windroy

From this point on, Windroy functions quite similarly to the other emulators. Why use it over others? For example, you may notice significant differences in speed or better compatibility with certain apps. I’d always recommend BlueStacks as the first Android emulator to turn to, simply because of its long track record as being a solid emulator and its consistent updates, but Windroy is an excellent second option if you’re unable to run the application or you encounter issues.
Here are some of the key features that Windroy boasts:

Runs smoothly on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8
Comes with Windows applications such as Flash integrated
Support for any UI resolution
Can run in windowed of full-screen mode
Supports IO devices like the mouse or keyboard

Introducing Windroy to the MakeUseOf audience as an alternative to BlueStacks means I won’t be giving a full rundown on what’s possible with an Android emulator, but I’d definitely like to shed light on a few tricks that you can use to make the emulator work in ways to help you get comfortable with it. It functions differently from competing emulators.

Using Windowed Mode

As aforementioned, Windroy takes up the full screen when you first launch it. If you’d like to restrict it to a window, so that you can focus other windows in your taskbar when not busy in Windroy, that’s completely possible. You’ll just need to set an environment variable.
To do so, you’ll need to right-click My Computer, go into your Properties, click on “Advanced system settings“, then the “Environment variables…” button.

Windroy

You’ll need to set up a variable called “WINDROY_RESOLUTION” and assign a resolution as the value, similar to what you see in the screenshot above. Apply the changes, completely restart Windroy, and you should not be seeing the application in a window.

Installing Apps

If you’ve used another emulator like YouWave, you’ll notice that there are built-in methods of getting to the Google Play store within the emulator. Not on Windroy though. With Windroy, manually installing APKs is how you’ll have to handle getting your favorite apps installed. As explained in the linked article, this will require that you allow apps to be installed from unknown sources.

One of my favorite repositories where you can find APKs is AndroidDrawer. Most popular apps can be found here, and you’ll simply need to download the APK and choose to open and install it after it’s been completed. The process is extremely simple and is basically the same as what you know to do through Google Play, just through another third-party website. Make sure you’re careful when deciding which of these APK repositories to trust, however.

Conclusion

Windroy won’t leave you awed and extremely impressed if you’re used to emulating Android through BlueStacks. BlueStacks has been reported to show more compatibility with a wider range of applications, specifically those from the Kindle’s app store. Many also vouch that BlueStacks offers a higher frame rate and is the best emulator for playing Android games, if that’s what you’re after. Windroy does do its job quite well though, and that’s all that is important. It’s a great second chance if other emulators have given you poor luck.
Let me know what you think of Windroy and how it stacks up against other Android emulators in the comments below.

Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/emulate-android-on-your-desktop-using-windroy/

WindowsAndroid: Run Android On Windows

Posted January 27, 2013 – 8:31 pm in: Freeware

Run Android on Your Netbook or Desktop

Would you like to try out Google’s Android OS on your netbook or desktop? Here’s how you can run Android from a flash drive and see how fast Android can run on real hardware!
Install Android On Your Flash Drive or Memory Card
First, make sure you have a flash drive or memory card inserted into your computer with around 256MB or more storage space. Remove any files you may need off of the drive, so you can use it to run Android on your computer.
Now you’re ready to download and setup Android on your drive. Head over to the Android x86 download page (link below), scroll down to the StableRelease section, and click View under android-x86-1.6-r2.iso. This will start the iso file downloading to your computer.

In the mean time, head over to the UNetbootin site (link below), and download it as well.

Once your downloads are complete, run UNetbootin. Click the bullet beside Diskimage, then click the “… “ button and select the Android ISO file you just downloaded. Finally, select the correct flash drive or memory card in the menu on the bottom, and click Ok.

UNetbootin will now copy the files to your flash drive. This may take a few moments, depending on your flash drive’s speed.

Once it’s finished, it will ask if you wish to reboot. If you want to go ahead and run Android, you can click Reboot; otherwise, just exit and run Android from your flash drive when you want.

If you want to try Android on a computer that has a CD/DVD drive, you could just burn the ISO to a disk and boot from it. Netbooks don’t have CD drives, and even on a desktop, it can be nice to not waste a CD just for this. If you want to burn it to a disk, you can do it easily from Windows 7 or with a free program such as ImgBurn.

Using Android-x86 On Your Computer
Now you’re ready to run Android on your netbook, laptop, or even a full desktop computer. Simply reboot your computer with the USB drive, and select to boot from it. Not all computers will automatically boot from a USB device, so you may have to press F2, F10, or another key, depending on your computer, and change the Boot options in the bios.

Now, when you boot from the USB drive, select Live CD – Run Android-x86 without installation.

You’ll see a text prompt for a few moments as Android begins to load.

Then you’ll see the Android boot screen, though we only saw it for a moment, as our computer booted really fast into Android.

After a couple seconds, you’ll see the Android desktop … on your netbook or computer! You can quickly access one of the apps on the home screen, or open the menu to see more options.

Click and hold to open a context menu, such as to change the background or add a desktop widget.

Or, press your mouse’s right button to open a menu, such as to open a new tab in the browser.

It works very good as a quick way to get online; the Android browser is actually quite capable for normal browsing, and worked very well in our tests. With a 10 second or less boot time, you may enjoy using this as an alternate to Puppy Linux or other light distros for a quick way to get online securely.

You can even install new applications with the included AndAppStore, though these will only be installed while this Android session is running. If you reboot your computer, you’ll only see the default applications and settings again.

Android x86 supports all of the hardware, including cameras and Wi-Fi, on several Netbooks and laptops; check the link below to see if yours is supported. In our test, our camera wasn’t supported, and we additionally had to connect to the internet via Ethernet since it didn’t detect our Wi-Fi card.

For the most part, Android was very responsive, but anything that would fade out the desktop such as opening a dialog box or a menu would run very slowly and even make the mouse feel jerky. Additionally, we couldn’t get it to boot on our desktop with an AMD processor. You could install Android to your hard drive, but we wouldn’t recommend it considering the limitations and issues it has. But, it is very fun to play with from a flash drive or memory card, and you may even feel adventurous enough to try installing it. Be warned, though; this isn’t for the weak of heart!
Conclusion
If you’re curious about how Android works and would like to try it out on a real machine, this is a great way to see how fast a mobile OS can be on a netbook or desktop. We wish it was more stable and could actually store programs and settings on the flash drive, but it did work as a nice substitute for Puppy Linux or other light, Live CD distros. It runs much faster on a real computer than in the emulator. Since you’re running it from a flash drive, you don’t have to worry about messing anything up, so go ahead and try it for research or fun.
Or, if you’d rather just try out Android from inside Windows, check out our articles on How to Test Drive Android in the Android Emulator and How to Enable the Android Market in the Emulator to try out the best Android has to offer.
Links
Download Android x86
Download UNetbootin
See if Your Netbook or Laptop is Fully Supported

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/22665/run-android-on-your-netbook-or-desktop/

Everything Windows & Chromebook

October 9, 2013

Emulate Android On Your Desktop Using Windroy or WindowsAndroid- 3 articles