How to update Xamarin on Visual Studio 2015

For those using VS 2015, community edition or higher, I am sure that the useless notification "Xamarin for Visual Studio Update Available" is irritating. Clicking on it does nothing. Updating the nuget packages doesn't solve the problem either. The MS forums suggested that you go to the Control Panel, Settings, Uninstall Program and "Change" the product setup.

No. They don't work. I am not sure who are these well meaning people who gave these suggestions but that's not how Xamarin was setup. Maybe they will fix it later and deliver Xamarin updates like updates for C++, SDKs, etc. But not now (end Sept 2016).

So what can you do?

Start your VS, go to Tools -> Options.
There is a whole list of configurations on the left hand side of the Options dialog box.
Go to the bottom, the 2nd last entry should be Xamarin. Expand it and choose "Other".
On the right hand side, click on "Check now" and another dialog box will open.
Click on the download button at the bottom and wait for the download to complete.

Once download is done, try to close VS before you proceed with the upgrade.

That's it.

Have fun!