How to install apk files on Android Emulator

Say you have an .apk file and you want to install it on your emulator, how do u do that? If you are new to Android and looking for a way to test some of the currently available Android applications, here is how to proceed :

• First get the Android SDK and unzip it somewhere on your hard drive
• Add SDK_ROOT to your system variables pointing to /tools folder under the sdk
  

  How do I do that you ask?
  Open the Terminal application. It can be found in the Utilities directory inside the Applications directory.
  Type the following:
  echo 'export PATH=YOURPATHHERE:$PATH' >> ~/.profile, replacing "YOURPATHHERE"
  with the name of the directory you want to add. Make certain that you use ">>" instead of one ">".
  Hit Enter.
  Close the Terminal and reopen. Your new Terminal session should now use the new PATH.

• Run the emulator
  android
• Copy the apk file to /tools folder
• Change directory to /tools and run from commandline
  adb install your_application.apk
• Now check applications list in the emulator and you should see the new application installed and ready.

Some pointed me to the error message when running adb on windows : * deamon still not running * error: no device.

In this case try to shutdown adb server and start it manually using :
adb kill-server
$adb start-server

You can test if deamon is working by running
adb shell

The uninstall procedure is

adb shell rm your_application.apk