To access the downloadable apps however, you’ll have to register for a free BlueStacks account with either a working email address or a Facebook account. Once you’ve installed the BlueStacks app player and configured it to your liking, you can start using the app player with the handful of apps preinstalled in it or with the few apps available for download within the BlueStacks ‘Add more apps’ channel. If you prefer not to have the player launch every time your PC boots up, you can disable the BlueStacks launcher via the Startup tab in the MSCONFIG tool (to access the tool, select Run from the Start menu, type msconfig, and press Enter). The app also connects automatically to BlueStacks servers.

The BlueStacks app player isn’t terribly intrusive: It requires minimal space and consumes few system resources but it does launch automatically with your PC, and it displays a status icon in the system tray. Though the video doesn’t offer a ton of information, it’s worth watching to ease your learning curve. When the installation is complete, you’ll see a short video describing how the BlueStacks app player works and how you can access a few key features. Future versions of the player will run in a window and will even permit shortcuts directly to Android apps. The alpha version of the BlueStacks app player will run full-screen on a Windows PC. Keep in mind that the BlueStacks app player is still in the early phases of development, so you can expect some minor performance issues and perhaps a bug or two. Then run the BlueStacks app player installation file, and follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation. To use the BlueStacks app player, you must first download it from the BlueStacks website or from PCWorld’s Downloads Library.

Using the BlueStacks app player is relatively straightforward, but there are some quirks involved with getting apps from a mobile device to a PC which we’ll go into a little later. If that’s something you’d like to try, here’s how to set it up. The BlueStacks app player essentially runs an instance of Android in a virtualized environment on the PC, so the apps act as though they’re running on a mobile device. Thankfully, Silicon Valley-based startup BlueStacks recently released an alpha version of what the company calls an app player–a PC program that enables users to download Android apps directly or transfer them from an Android-based smartphone or tablet to their PC.

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