We recently showed you how to test drive Android on your PC, but you only have access to the OS or directly installed apps. Here's how to enable the Android Market so you can test the full Android experience on your desktop.


With all the mobile OS companies touting their app stores these days, it's hard to really test drive an operating system without testing its selection of apps. Our friends at the How-To Geek, however, have figured out how to get the Android Market working in the Android emulator, so you can try out more than just the ones that come with the phone.


You'll need to do a tiny bit of work to enable the app, but it shouldn't be too hard: it just requires downloading and extracting a new Android Virtual Machine to one of the emulator's folders. You'll also need to change a bit of text in a config file. If you've already installed the emulator, this process probably isn't anything you can't handle. Once you're finished, you'll be able to choose your new, market-enabled virtual machine at startup and browse, download, and test drive apps from the Market just as you would use them on a normal Android phone. Hit the link for the full instructions.

How to Enable the Android Market in the Google Android Emulator [How-To Geek]