So you decided to give it a try and make some Android screenshots. Well, be ready that it might be a bit tricky to get all prerequisites for Android Screen Capture in place, especially on Windows. But don’t worry. We are here to help. Lets get started.

1. JDK

First of all you will need to get Java Development Kit 1.6+ installed on your system.

1. You may follow this direct link to get recent package.
2. Click Download JDK.
3. Choose Accept License Agreement.
4. Click file which corresponds your platform.
5. Run downloaded exe file and follow onscreen instructions. You may accept all the defaults.
6. It may take several minutes for installer to do its job.

NOTE: that you may need to manually add Java directory to your PATH variable if ddms and/or Ashot won’t launch.

2. Android SDK

Then you need to get and install Android SDK.

1. Follow this link to get latest Android SDK for Windows platform.
2. Download installer_r12-windows.exe.
3. Launch downloaded installation package and accept defaults.
4. Click Finish to open SDK Manager.
5. Go to the next section to install USB Driver.

Note: Please remember the full path to the SDK for further steps. In this guide we will assume that SDK path is “C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk-windows“.

3. Windows USB driver & Platform Tools

Wow, this looks tough for getting your phone connected to Windows computer. Anyway here are the steps.

1. Please make sure your phone is NOT CONNECTED to your computer.
2. (Skip this step if you have SDK Manager running already after installation) Run SDK Manager.exe from SDK path. And wait until it has finished refreshing sources.
3. (Only on the first run of SDK Manager) Click Cancel since you don’t need anything but Platform-tools and USB driver for screen capture application.
4. Select Available packages on the left panel.
5. Expand the Android Repository and set check next to Android SDK Platform-tools.
6. Expand Third party Add-ons –> Google Inc. add-ons and set check next to Google USB Driver Package.
7. Click Install Selected.
8. Click Accept All to accept License and then click Install.
9. When install finishes, the USB Driver will be in “C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk-windows\google-usb_driver“.
10. Close SDK Manager.
11. Connect your phone. You will be prompted for driver, which is located in the path mentioned above.
12. For more details installing driver please visit http://developer.android.com/sdk/win-usb.html.

It could be the end story, but there are some extra steps:

1. Make sure that standard SDK tool ddms.bat (from C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk-windows\tools) launches successfully. Otherwise Screen Capture Tool won’t work either.
2. If ddms won’t launch, add the platform-tools to your system PATH variable like this: Right-click My computer –> Advanced –> Environment Variables –> select Path in System Variables box –> Edit –> append “;C:\Program Files\Android\android-sdk-windows\platform-tools” to the existing Path. Please note the semicolon “;” preceding the path being appended.
3. If ddms won’t launch even after you have accomplished the step above, try disconnecting your phone, then launch ddms and then connect your phone back.

And also:

• Copy adb.exe from platform-tools to tools folder.
• Also copy AdbWinApi.dll and AdbWinUsbApi.dll from platform-tools to tools folder.

4. USB Debugging for Android

To capture screens from your Android phone, it needs to have USB Debugging setting activated.

1. On your Android device click Menu button.
2. Click Settings.
3. Click Applications
4. Click Development
5. Make sure USB Debugging is checked.