Install Xamarin for Visual Studio 2013 Express

Question

I have a Windows 8.1 laptop and I installed Xamarin. Xamarin Studio works fine, but I cannot use the Xamarin integration for Visual Studio 2013 Express for Windows Desktop.

Answer 1

Visual Studio Express does not support extensibility. You need to install at least Visual Studio Professional.

Express is not extensible. NuGet is a Microsoft released extension, so it can run in Express. Not allowing extensions in Express is a business decision not a technological one.

Ryan Molden > Microsoft (MCC, MSFT)

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From the Xamarin FAQ:

What are the minimum system requirements?

Xamarin requires the platform SDKs from Apple and Google to target iOS or Android, and our system requirements match theirs. To build for iOS, you'll need the latest iOS SDK (currently iOS 7), which requires an Intel-based Mac running OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion). Our Visual Studio Extensions for iOS and Android support any non-Express editions of Visual Studio 2010, Visual Studio 2012 and Visual Studio 2013

^{http://xamarin.com/faq}

Answer 2

Try Visual Studio Community 2013. Its free and includes all the great functionality of Visual Studio Professional 2013, designed and optimized for individual developers, students, open source contributors, and small teams.

You can check the following links for more info:

http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/vs2013-community-vs.aspx

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-2014/040