Steps To Download And Install Android SDK In Windows

What Is Android SDK?

Android SDK is software development kit which enables you to create applications for android platform. For example if you wants to create game for android phone, you need installed android SDK with java programming. Also it provides ability to create emulators to test new created games or any other android apps. that's it.. No need to learn more than this for software testing engineer to test android apps using appium.

We learnt about appium software automation testing tool in THIS POST. Now we are going to setup environment to run software automation tests on android platform using appium. Using appium, We can create and run automation test for native apps and web apps too on android devices or emulators. Android SDK is prerequisite to run tests on android platform using appium. So let's install android SDK in windows platform. Please note, We have installed JDK in previous step as JDK is prerequisite to installing SDK.

We will divide Android configuration in 2 parts

1. Android SDK Download And Installation.
2. Set ANDROID_HOME and Path environment variables. View NEXT POST.

Bellow given steps will show you Android SDK software download and installation steps. My next post will show you how to set ANDROID_HOME and Path environment variables in windows.

Android SDK Download And Installation Steps

PREREQUISITE : PREVIOUS 2 STEPS of appium tutorials should be completed.

First of all you need to download Android SDK for windows and then we can install and configure it.

System Requirements

• 2 GB RAM minimum, 4 GB RAM recommended
• Microsoft® Windows® 8/7/Vista/2003 (32 or 64-bit)
• 20 to 30 GB Hard disk space.

Download Android SDK

For downloading android SDK,

• Go to this software web application page -> http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
• Scroll down to bottom of page.
• There will be SDK Tools Only" under "Other Download Options" section.
• Click on android-sdk_r(Version number)-windows.zip link e.g. android-sdk_r24.3.3-windows.zip as shown in bellow image.

• It will download android SDK zip file as sown in bellow image.
  
• Put zip file in E: drive. (Note : Android SDK needs 20 to 30 GB space on disc to store different files. So select appropriate disc where enough space is available.)
• Extract .zip file. You will get "android-sdk-windows" folder as shown in above image.
• Rename folder name  from "android-sdk-windows" to "SDK" for easy name.

So now you have E:\SDK folder which is responsible to store android SDK related stuff.

Install Required Packages

In order to create android emulators for testing, You need to download and install few packages. You can do it using Android SDK Manager as described in bellow given steps.

• Look inside SDK folder. There will be "SDK Manager.exe".
• Execute it by double click. It will open Android SDK Manager dialog as shown in bellow image.
• Android SDK Tools package will be installed by default.
• You can select your required package from list of different packages and then click on Install packages button as shown in bellow image to install selected packages. I have installed different 27 packages as shown in 2nd image.

• I have installed different 28 packages from different folders as shown in bellow given images. You can download all bellow mentioned 28 packages to create different emulators with different configurations.

Note : Downloading all packages can take lot of time. It depends on your internet speed.

Install Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager
After installation of all packages, You need to install Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager to avoid error during android virtual device creation. Following steps will install it.

• At "E:\SDK\extras\intel\Hardware_Accelerated_Execution_Manager" path, You will find "intelhaxm-android.exe" file.
• Double click on "intelhaxm-android.exe" file to execute and install it.

My recommendation to reduce errors during android emulator creation and launch : Later on we will create android emulator using AVD Manager. When you create emulator, You need to set few properties on create new android virtual device to create new android emulator. But sometimes you will face problem like not display any option in Target or CPU/ABI or Skin drop down. Also you may face error on launch emulator. Reason behind this is some system image or related files are pending to install. So, I command you to install latest 5 API full packages. That means do not select individual file but select Tools, top 6 API level full folders and Extras folder and install them full as shown bellow. It will install all related files of that folder and reduce error in android emulator creation and launch.

This will reduce errors and complexity during android emulator creation and launch process.

That's it.

After installation of different packages and system images, You need to set ANDROID_HOME and Path environment variables. View next post to know how to set it.

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