How to resolve : unexpected error occured Initializing Android Designer" in VS 2015 with Xamarin

Question

Bringing up a new PC with Xamarin and VS 2015 Pro I received the following error:

An unexpected error occurred trying to initialize Android Designer.

Answer 1

Another issue to be aware of is that you need to have Java Development Kit 8 referenced in Xamarin, instead of JDK 7. You can set this is Tools > Options > Xamarin > Android.