Xamarin.Forms Visual Studio 2017 project does not deploy

I just installed Visual Studio 2017 (on Win10 15063.138) and found, like you, Xamarin projects won't deploy to Android. Here's how I got running:

  • Updated everything in the Android SDK Manager.
  • Installed the new, improved Android Emulator from MS: https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/msft-android-emulator/
  • Used that to download/install an API level 23 (6.0 Marshmallow) emulator
  • Started that emulator using the same tool (you'll see it running in Hyper-V Manager)
  • Selected same emulator in VS for deploy/debug (the emulators that ship with VS are painfully slow)
  • In VS, selected Android project for start-up and verified build and deploy to Android in build config mgr.

Note: MS doesn't appear to have any emulators above API level 23, so Compilation and Target settings for your Android project can be the latest, but the minimum target will have to be 6.0 (API 23).


After pulling my hair for the past few days, I finally got my Xamarin.Forms Android App to show my page on the emulator. Thanks to all the members for their suggestions. Ryan's suggestion helped a lot ( I +1ed him, thanks Ryan) but did not solve my problem. I googled further and found a suggestion that asked to change the following setting which did it for me finally. So, if anyone else get stuck like I did, please do the following (in addition to cleaning up and updating all packages):

  • Open up the setting for your Hyper-V vm for your emulator (while the VM is off).
  • Expand the Processor node on the left and click on "Compatibility".
  • Now put a check mark on "Migrate to a physical computer with a different processor version" on the right.
  • Start your emulator in the Visual Studio Emulator tool.
  • Now, start debug your android project in VS using the same emulator that is already running.
  • After a delay (there is always a delay), your app will show up on the emulator. Yey!!