I'm currently on my 3rd attempt at installing Xamarin. The first time it seemed to install OK, but the android emulator never ran properly: and man, was it slow getting to the point where it inevitably failed. I looked on the forums and found that I should run the Intel x86 host. I couldn't get the Intel x86 host to run (apparently, my Xenon E5504 chips don't support it, even though I run Hyperv) and saw that I might try the Genymotion emulator (which yses VirtualBox) instead. I got that installed and it appeared to run, though it said I could only have 1 core on the emulator. OK, not a big problem. Then I re-booted and my machine hung, and again, and again. I reverted to a system restore point and it booted, but wiped out all of the installations. I found that VirtualBox and Hyperv don't play well, so I found some posts about how to use /bcdedit to disable Hyperv. OK, got VirtualBox and Genymotion emulator running. Rebooted. Installed Xamarin again. BTW, it takes FOREVER. It's fine until it gets to "Please wait while Windows configures Xamarin.Android, Time remaining: 4 seconds, which takes closer to 15 minutes, and then again when it gets to Xamarin.iOS and Time remaining: 12 seconds which takes another 15 minutes. Rebooted - hung, again, hung, again -then I chose NOT to go back to the restore point when prompted, but it appears it did anyway. Most of the Xamarin install was wiped out. The Xamarin Studio icon was still in the start menu, but told me it couldn't find some of the prerequisites. I'm installing a 3rd time, but it doesn't look promising. I figure I have about 1/2 hour to go to get past the 4 and 12 second markers respectively. I'm running Windows 8 Pro on a Dell T5500 which uses dual Intel E5504 chips for a total of 8 cores. Can anyone help me out with this? I've heard I can run Android OS's inside Hyperv, but does that work with Xamarin? That would be the best solution for me because I would like to continue running Hyperv. If so, where is the best place to get the iso image to install?
I really want to get this working. It will be a couple of weeks before I can get a Mac on my network to try the iOS stuff, so right now I'm stuck troubleshooting android emulators.
Thanks in advance! Mike