Preparing Android Emulator for Testing

You need the following software to use the Android emulator with TestComplete:

• Intel x86 Atom System Image

• Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM) – a hardware virtualization driver that speeds up the Android emulator

You can download them using the Android SDK Manager:

• Start the SDK Manager.

  • In Eclipse:

    Select Windows > Android SDK Manager.

  • In Android Studio:

    Select Configure > SDK Manager, or select File > Settings and then select Appearance & Behavior > System Settings > Android SDK

• Select the following items:

  • Intel x86 Atom System Image for the Android version you want use in the emulator

  • Intel x86 Emulator Accelerator (HAXM)

  

  Click the image to enlarge it.

• Click OK, accept the license agreements and proceed with the installation.

As an alternative, you can install the packages by using the sdkmanager command-line utility. The utility is shipped with Android Studio or with standalone Android SDK tools:

For detailed information on the utility command-line parameters, see the utility description in the Android documentation.

The SDK Manager does not install the Intel HAXM driver automatically, it just downloads the HAXM installation package to the following location:

<Android SDK>\extras\intel\Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager\IntelHaxm.exe

To install the HAXM driver, launch this file and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. For HAXM installation notes, see the Intel web site:

Installation Instructions for Intel® Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager

To verify that the HAXM driver is running, open Windows command prompt and run the following command:

You should see the following output:

If HAXM is not running, you can start it using the following command:

The emulated Android Virtual Device (AVD) must be based on the Intel x86 image. To create such an AVD, do the following:

• Start the Android Virtual Device Manager.

  • In Eclipse:

    Select Window | Android Virtual Device Manager.

  • In the Android SDK Manager:

    Select Tools | Manage AVDs.

  • From the Start menu:

    Select All Programs | Android SDK Tools | AVD Manager.

• Click New to create a new AVD.

• Set the following AVD options:

  • Target: the Android version of the Intel x86 image that you downloaded

  • CPU/ABI: Intel Atom (x86)

  • RAM: 512 - 1024

  • SD Card | Size: any non-zero value

  • Use Host GPU:

    • checked if Target is Android 4.0.3 - 4.2.2
    • unchecked if Target is Android 4.3 or later

  Specify the AVD name and other options as needed.

  

• Click Create AVD.

If you are going to test your Android application as an Open Application, install the TestComplete Android Agent on the created AVD.

We also recommend that you install the agent if you want to perform black-box testing, as it is needed for simulating keystrokes and it simplifies testing geolocation activities.

For complete information on installing the Agent, see the Agent description.

Requirement: In order for the Android Agent to be able to work on an emulator, the emulator must have 512 MB of RAM or more.