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using adb

I feel like an idiot. I keep reading posts and instructions on how to use the adb/adb shell. Everything I read seems to indicate that the knowledge on how to open the adb command window is something that any idiot should be able to do... So much so, that no one explains how! I must be missing something!
I have installed eclipse and the sdk, the ADT plugin, etc. I run adb.exe and a command window flashes on my screen and immediately fades away. I can't even read what was posted in the window.
I know I am missing something but I guess I am just too inexperienced to know what that is. I can't find anything on the web that will tell me what file to open or sequence of files to open to access the adb command window.
Someone please help out a hopeless nuub!
Thanks
I am running Windows Vista 64 and have installed the 64bitUSB drivers. I can open an emulator, I can run the terminal on my G1, have installed the JK modified r30 on my phone.

add the whole path to your sdk/tools folder to your windows environment path: (right click my computer, click properties, select "advanced" select "environment variables" and look for "Path" in the bottom list, select "Path" and click "edit" then at the end of the existing path info, add a semicolon, and then paste in the complete path to your sdk/tools folder, click save, and close all the windows.
now, goto start, run, and type cmd.exe, a command line window will appear, type "adb" and it should work.
cheers,
-- michael

you can also use google to search the forum when you are looking for 3 letter terms (the forum search function is 4+ characters)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site:http://forum.xda-developers.com/+android+adb
--M

you don't use adb by pressing adb.exe in the tools folder you use it with command prompt go to programs and to accessories and look for command prompt now you can use adb like adb remount and pull push so on with your phone connected to the pc can you see your phone in ddms you open it from the sdk tools folder where the adb.exe is and if you can use adb.exe to open command prompt it don't work for me ether

I'm guessing that when I get all the ADB info after typing "adb" in the command window that it is working correctly?

If you run adb with no args, it will simply return a short summary of available args and terminate. In Windows if the window is opened by a program using the command line rather than directly calling cmd.exe, it will automatically close when the program terminates. The solution is to use cmd and then adb from within that.

Jashsu - Thanks! that was what I needed to know! LOL I am such a noob!!!
I had access to adb all the damn time! I just didn't know it! DUH!
I now have Koush's auto rotating browser installed! AWESOME.
Thanks to all who responded! I am learning pretty quick. But, some things are just so commonly known by dev's that they just aren't explained very well.
I found a couple of books I'm going to purchase so I don't have to keep bugging all of you. But, you guys are the greatest. Thanks for the help!

Guide to Rooting 32B Magic on a Mac

Having had to do quite a bit of digging around to work out how to root using an Intel Mac I decided to summarise what I did for the benefit of others. It may well have unnecessary steps or lack full explanation as I don't fully understand Terminal / command line.
I have a Vodafone Magic (32B), SPL 1.33.0004
It was running 1.6 prior to this and I didn't downgrade it to 1.5 first. The following steps are the only ones I needed to do.
As a new user here I'm not allowed to post links but you can google for the 2 external pages I've referenced.
I used a modified version of the "wiki.cyanogenmod full update guide MT3G" to reflect what to do on the Mac.
Scroll to "Non-TMobile 32B Magics"
Follow initial instructions Prep 1-6 but use the eMagi "How to setup ADB" tutorial for the Android SDK in step 1 of the prep.
Notes for Neoblade's ADB tutorial on eMagi:
Once you have done this bit
"Click on Install Selected, Accept All then Install"
you can skip most of the rest.
The Mac version does not need .exe and .dll files moved, nor does it need extra drivers to be installed.
Instead open the Terminal application, type "cd(then a space)" then drag-and-drop the Tools folder from the android-sdk-mac_86 folder into the Terminal window after the "cd " you have just typed.Then press Enter.
You are then down at the "Type in ADB Devices" line of the Tutorial.
Instead Type in "./adb devices" (dot forwards slash adb devices) and Enter and your device should be listed as per the Tutorial.
For Prep step 2 you will need to download "fastboot-mac" from the linked site. ( I placed it inside my android-sdk-mac_86/tools folder, which is on my desktop)
You then follow the Installation section of the wiki article, but the command line instructions have to be changed for Terminal as follows:
For "cd C:\android-sdk\tools"
Type "cd /Users/xxx/Desktop/android-sdk-mac_86/tools" (Where xxx is your Username, and the android-sdk-mac_86 folder is on the desktop. Note the space after the cd)
(or just type "cd(space)" and drag and drop the tools folder as per previously)
For "fastboot boot C:\recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.5.2G.img"
Type "./fastboot-mac boot recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.6.2G.img"
For "adb devices"
Type "./adb devices"
For "adb push C:\recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.5.2G.img /sdcard/RA152G.img"
Type "./adb push recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.6.2G.img /sd-card/recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.6.2G.img"
For "adb shell flash_image recovery /sdcard/RA152G.img"
Type "./adb shell flash_image recovery /sd-card/recovery-RA-sapphire-v1.6.2G.img"
... and that should be that. It worked for me!
I must stress I have not worked this out through prior knowledge of command line etc so it would be at your own risk. However I have a rooted Magic now. Thanks to Neoblade for simplifying the process.
I couldn't find a start-to-finish Mac tutorial so hopefully this will be helpful.

I'm a little confused, cuz I never had a problem rooting on a mac, since I'd simply download the OSX SDK from the android site and use fastboot-mac.
So not exactly sure how helpful your first post here will be (especially for people who could have just searched the forum for earlier help). Course you could also just copy fastboot (renamed from fastboot-mac) and adb into /usr/bin and not have to worry bout ./

Need help with ADB

I am pulling my hair out. I have SDK installed and whatever I was instructed to install on SDK, for the life of me I can't get the command shell to work. When I open a command shell and type adb. I get a message 'adb' is not a recognized as an internal or external command, operable batch or program file.
My phone is plugged in debugging checked, I have it set to mass storage, not kies. What am I doing wrong.
Sorry for the noob question. I have been reading every forum I can find, every document I can find. I am trying to learn and I like to mess with my phone and should know how to use adb command shells.
Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks.

Rhiannon224 said:
I am pulling my hair out. I have SDK installed and whatever I was instructed to install on SDK, for the life of me I can't get the command shell to work. When I open a command shell and type adb. I get a message 'adb' is not a recognized as an internal or external command, operable batch or program file.
My phone is plugged in debugging checked, I have it set to mass storage, not kies. What am I doing wrong.
Sorry for the noob question. I have been reading every forum I can find, every document I can find. I am trying to learn and I like to mess with my phone and should know how to use adb command shells.
Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
PC or mac?
On a PC cd /Android/Tools then use adb commands
on a Mac: cd /Android/Tools then use ./adb then the command

PC. Thanks I will try that.
update
system cannot find the path specified
I am ready to delete everything and start over, maybe the path is wrong and I borked something in the download. There should be an Android for dummy's book or something, for us noobs.

where did you install the files? You had to download the SDK and unzip it.
Then you use a command window to change directories to where ever you installed it. Then run the commands.
If you don't know how to move around directories using DOS commands, you better find a tutorial on that first.
Your problems sound like you are not in the tools directory - CMD issues not Adroid - CMD is the windows shell btw.

alphadog00 said:
where did you install the files? You had to download the SDK and unzip it.
Then you use a command window to change directories to where ever you installed it. Then run the commands.
If you don't know how to move around directories using DOS commands, you better find a tutorial on that first.
Your problems sound like you are not in the tools directory - CMD issues not Adroid - CMD is the windows shell btw.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
downloaded and upzipped. It's in a folder named Android, in my c;/drive. I watched a tutorial and put it where I thought I was supposed to, then I made sure to edit the path. I can undo that. I know it's a CMD issue. Great DOS commands, this is a little over my head.
I's probably easier for me to delete everything and start over.
Is there an ADB for dummies or anything. I find them for other devices not Captivate?

if you change directories to the tools directory, do you see adb.exe listed? I am not sure which tutorial you used, but there is no reason to edit the path if you change directly into the android sdk/tools directory.
In a CMD window, change to the tools directory and do a DIR and see if the first file is adb.exe
Deleting and starting over is not going to change things at this point. Also ADB is a command that works the same regardless of which phone you have. The only things that are different is if you can mount the system partition - depends on your kernel - is it custom. Not phone dependent though.

alphadog00 said:
if you change directories to the tools directory, do you see adb.exe listed? I am not sure which tutorial you used, but there is no reason to edit the path if you change directly into the android sdk/tools directory.
In a CMD window, change to the tools directory and do a DIR and see if the first file is adb.exe
Deleting and starting over is not going to change things at this point. Also ADB is a command that works the same regardless of which phone you have. The only things that are different is if you can mount the system partition - depends on your kernel - is it custom. Not phone dependent though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks I did this and no it isn't listed. the Android folder is, that is where I extracted all the files. Should I move from the folder. After extracting the files did I need to install anything from it?

Rhiannon224 said:
Thanks I did this and no it isn't listed. the Android folder is, that is where I extracted all the files. Should I move from the folder. After extracting the files did I need to install anything from it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You should have extracted everything. You should have a folder that extracted:
android-sdk-windows and in that a tools folder. In the tools folder is ADB.exe
It is one big zip file - nothing to install - just unzip where you want it.

hold shift and then right click on that tools folder(wherever you put it), select open command window here from the menu, then type adb to make sure it worked

Kagoshema said:
hold shift and then right click on that tools folder(wherever you put it), select open command window here from the menu, then type adb to make sure it worked
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. That did the trick. It is there and it worked. So I am guessing that when I want to open a command shell and use ADB this is how I will be able to do it. Thank you so much for all of your help everyone.
I am very new to Android and smart phones, 7 weeks now and I am trying to learn as much as I can and I try to find the information without asking too many questions.
Last night with SRE and it's sleeping death made me realize that I need to know how to use ADB and a command shell should things go wrong.
Again, thanks to everyone for the help.

Super Noob question

I am trying to get adb to work. I am doing it on a x64 vista system and I think I am getting the Path wrong. I am trying to get it to run like the page says to initialize it to read the device so I know it is working.
I can't get it to start from command prompt with out navigating to the directory it resides in. Is that right for the newer versions of ADB or am I just a monkey and can't figure out simple pathing?

I just made a folder in my c drive called ADB, and placed the entire folder with adb and the dll files required in it, along with superuser, busybox, etc.
Right click on command prompt and run as administrator.
once at system32 type: cd C:\ADB
then you will have navigated to the folder containing your ADB files.
your command prompt should now read: C:\ADB
then you can type: adb devices
it will say something about starting daemon services, and then list attached devices.
you are free to proceed with whatever instruction or operation you are doing after that.
also, make sure you have the drivers for the phone installed, or your computer wont recognize the android debugging bridge.

LowRentTechGuy said:
I am trying to get adb to work. I am doing it on a x64 vista system and I think I am getting the Path wrong. I am trying to get it to run like the page says to initialize it to read the device so I know it is working.
I can't get it to start from command prompt with out navigating to the directory it resides in. Is that right for the newer versions of ADB or am I just a monkey and can't figure out simple pathing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android Development is not for questions or Problems
Please post in the correct Forums
Moving to General

Well thanks for moving it, I will keep a closer eye on which forum I am browsing when I post.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Having troubles with the command prompt stages of the rooting process

Hi there,
I have an HTC Magic and am trying to root it by following this guide http://forum.xda-developers.com/wiki/HTC_Sapphire_Hacking#Known_Hackable_SPL_revisions
I have the Android SDK package installed, but am having troubles getting any further because I'm having troubles with the command line prompts.
For instance, I added ;C:\AndroidSDK\tools\ to the end of the Path in my Environment Variables, just like the guide said, but I don't know if I did it correctly. When I open up the command prompt, it still gives me C:\Windows\System32> as my starting directory. What should I be seeing instead?
Also, when I type in "adb devices", it doesn't recognize the command. I'm assuming that's because I'm typing it into the wrong directory, but I don't understand how to navigate to the right one.
Any suggestions?

You need to add the path to the directory that CONTAINS the adb.exe file.
If you did it correct the command "adb" should be recognized.
You may need to restart the computer after adding the path i'm not 100% sure.
Adding something to the PATH variable does not change where you start out when you open the command prompt.

Yea that's what I did. I added ;C:\AndroidSDK\platform-tools\ (my adb file is in the platform tools folder) but when I type adb in the command line, it doesn't recognize the command.