make Android device available in Windows and copy the .apk to the device

First, I wasn't able to see the Android device available in Xamarin nor in Windows's USB-connected devices tray icon.

The solution to this is to go to Device Manager \ Other Devices, right click on the Android device item and select 'Update driver' and select to browse for the driver on your disk. Select the location of the Goodle USB driver, which is in the location of where Android SDK is installed (extras\google\usb_driver folder). It's a location similar to this one:

C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Local\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver

After this, the Android device item should be not disappear from the Device Manager \Others and also appear in the USB menu in tray icon.


When connectig the USB to the device, a ‘USB Mass Storage’ screen appears with this option.
In order to copy .apk to device, you need to turn on the USB storage.  
You can then copy the released and signed .apk file on the sd_card folder.
Then using the AppInstaller app (search on marketplace) you can select and install the app.

Alternatively, the app can be downloaded and installed from a web location.


You can also install an application using the adb (Android Debug Bridge)

adb install -r [path_to_apk]

the adb is in the Android tools directory: %LocalAppData%\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools (shift + right click in explorer on folder to show 'open command prompt from here')

More info on ADB:
http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4449540/failure-install-failed-already-exists-when-i-tried-to-update-my-application
http://www.vogella.com/articles/AndroidCommandLine/article.html