Cannot find 'aapt.exe' - latest version of Visual Studio 2019 and Xamarin installed

Question

Hello,

I have the latest version of Visual Studio 2019 community edition installed. A couple of days ago I installed Xamarin and Android SDK by following the instructions given in this course material "Xamarin Tutorial - Hello World in 10 minutes" available from this URL:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/learn/xamarin/hello-world-tutorial/intro

When I try to build the downloaded VS solution I see this error message:
"Cannot find 'aapt.exe'. Please install the Android SDK Build-Tools package with the C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\tools\android.bat program. MobileAppTest.Android"

Sure enough, there's no aapt.exe anywhere under C:\Program Files (x86). I also tried running the "android.bat" script as instructed in the message. This led to this message being displayed:

---

The "android" command is deprecated.
For manual SDK, AVD, and project management, please use Android Studio.
For command-line tools, use tools\bin\sdkmanager.bat
and tools\bin\avdmanager.bat

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Invalid or unsupported command ""

Supported commands are:
android list target
android list avd
android list device
android create avd
android move avd
android delete avd
android list sdk
android update sdk

Firstly, it says that this batch script is deprecated. Secondly, I am not sure which option I should specify to installl 'aapt.exe' (if this is at all possible after this batch script has been deprecated).

I could of course install Android Studio as suggested, but I suspect that doing so would not allow me to learn to use Xamarin, which is my aim with this exercise.

Answer 1

It appears that the course material I was following was slightly out of date. Unlike any VS2019 native components, there were no notifications for any available component updates. I had to navigate manually to Tools -> Android -> Android SDK Manager, and after doing so there were notifications for certain updates. After I installed those updates, I was able to build and run the Xamarin "Hello World" example. Thanks for your suggestion, Jarvan!

Answer 2

Hello,​

Welcome to our Microsoft Q&A platform!

Cannot find 'aapt.exe'. Please install the Android SDK Build-Tools package with the ...

Have you installed the Android SDK Build Tools? Go to Tools -> Android -> Android SDK Manager -> Tools to install the function. You could check the following guideline which explain the steps to set up Android SDK for Xamarin.Android more detaily.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/xamarin/android/get-started/installation/android-sdk?tabs=windows

Best Regards,

Jarvan Zhang

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