Complete Guide About How To Run Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) On PC

Yesterday we have covered ins and outs of the latest Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich. If you have missed it, you can check the article f...

Complete Guide Of How To Install Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich On Windows Linux Mac (23)Yesterday we have covered ins and outs of the latest Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich. If you have missed it, you can check the article from here. For then we have received lots of email regarding how can I try Android 4.0 aka Ice Cream Sandwich on my PC/Mobile. Well, Android 4 isn’t yet available for mobile devices so you have no chance to upgrade your current Android system to Ice Cream Sandwich (and I am not sure if you can upgrade after it’s available – there’s always concern about hardware requirement). But if you want to have a first look over Android 4.0, then we are here to help you. After reading this article, surly you will be able to try this latest version of Android without any delay. So let’s get ready for it.

We have a separate full tutorial regarding “How To Run Android On PC”. Before going through following steps, you should check that as we are not going to quote anything from that tutorial.

Things We Need

Getting Ready

So 1st download and install the Java Development Kit (JDK) and then move to Android developer site to download Android SDK (both link provided already). Then install the SDK too. Then run the “SDK Manager.exe” from the installation directory.

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Then the SDK Manager will start and load a list of all available packages (SDK Platform, System Image, Documentation, Samples APIs etc.). We are going to try Android 4.0 so we need only tools under “Android 4.0 (API 14) folder. Select the whole folder and then click on “Install xx packages” from the bottom-right side.

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Now you will get a pop up regarding whether you accept to install those packages or not. You will also get description of all selected packages. Click on “Accept All” and then “Install”.

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Note that if you don’t want to waste bandwidth, then select at least “SDK Platform” and “ARM EABI v7a System Image “ from the Android 4.0 (API 14) folder.

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It will now start downloading those packages. Seat tight and wait for the process to finish. This step may take sometime depending on you Internet speed.

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Troubleshooting: It looks to take a lots of time to download ARM EABI v7a System Image and even after trying sometimes, I failed to download it from there. So if you face the same problem, then close the “Android SDK Manage” window and then download ARM EABI v7a System Image manually using your browser/download manager and then copy the downloaded .zip file to the Temp folder under “Android SDK” installation directory. The default path is “C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk\temp”. After this, run the SDK Manager again and then select the “ARM EABI v7a System Image” under Android 4.0 (API 14) folder and then click Install. This time it will not download the package and it will be installed directly from temp.

Setting Up

Run the AVD Manager from “Tools > Manage AVDs” from the Android SDK Manager to set up next.

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Alternately you can directly run AVD Manager from the Android SDK’s installation directory.

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Now click on “New” to create a new AVD for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

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On the name field, enter a name to call this AVD. I am inputting here “Ice-Cream_Sandwich”.

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Now from the target menu, select “Android 4.0 – API Level 14”. This will determine our AVD’s platform.

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Now lets make a dedicated disk space for SD Card of this AVD. I will be using 1 GB space for this so I am inputting 1024 on the field (as the size is in Megabyte format). 

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Leave everything else as default. So the final configuration will look like this.

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Review everything and then click on “Create AVD”. After sometimes you will see a notification saying the “Result of creating AVD ‘………’”. Hit ok. We are now ready to try Android 4.0.

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Troubleshooting: If you get the error massage with “Error: Unable to find a ‘userdata.img’ file for ABI armeabi to copy into AVD folder.” like the following :-

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then you surly have missed to download and install “ARM EABI v7a System Image”. We have already said how to do it. Please don’t ignore that step otherwise you will not be able to run Android 4.0.

Now you will see your newly created AVD name on the list (here’s mine – Ice-Cream_Sandwich). Highlight this and then click on “Start”.

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Now hit launch from the popup.

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Now AVD Manager will start to load up your AVD. Some command box will appear, just ignore them – they will be closed automatically. After sometimes the boot screen will switch to an Android boot animation. Then you Android Virtual Drive will load up. This might take 5-10 minutes to run Android for the first time.

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Now you are all set to fly with Android 4.0. A few screenshots:

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That’s pretty much of it. If you yet have any problem or anything to ask, please leave a message here.

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17 comments :

  1. Another good tut from you. Thanks again!

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  2. The arm eabi file is taking eternity to download. And it's not finishing. Any alternative?

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  3. Just follow the alternate steps. Read carefully

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  4. AVD of 4.0 "fails" to load. No console messages appear at all and boot animation runs for hours until it freezes (I even let it run overnight). Android 2.3.3 runs fine and 4.0 doesn't show any errors, just never loads. Any suggestions?

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  5. Have you tried installing in on root folder like directly on C:\ drive? Worked for me

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  6. I would prefer to use Bluestack instead. This is a hard process and needs a lot of time to waste.

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  7. Bluestack sucks. Android AVD provides a lot options and works almost like a smartphone. Bluestack is nothing but a messy emulator

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  8. Can you tell me how to download ARM EABI v7a System Image? I failed after trying a lots of time.

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  9.  i downloaded the  sysimg_armv7a-14_r01.zip manually and copied it into temp folder but if i try to install it from avd manager it starts the whole download again as
    sysimg_armv7a-14_r01.zip and if i extract the files in the temp folder then it says installed but broken link

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  10. what's the differents between android 1.5,1.6.... and 4.0

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  11. Just like Windows XP vs Windows 7 and similar. Android 4.0 is the latest version of Android Operating System Project and it has way more features and functions comparing with previous Android version.

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  12. u did like Didier Drogba! 100% working, thanx

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  13. Thanks a Lot yar I praise for the effort you have put in writing this tutorial ;-)

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  14. Thanks for the manual dl tip
    Worked just fine in my case too with the API 15 r2 and the edited url
    https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/repository/sysimg_armv7a-15_r02.zip

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  15. superlike.....thank you so much

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  16. thanks for such guidance. after downloading zip file and set at with temp folder, i was not able to create Virtual device. so, i extract that zip file to a folder name 'images' and paste this folder to folder 'android-14' folder. And after that it creates Virtual Device for API 14.

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