Xperia:ADB and Fastboot

ADB (Android Debug Bridge) and fastboot are two programs used to communicate with your phone, and let you run various commands for things like debugging or installing applications. You can download these as part of the platform-tools package from Google. You can also install them via the Android SDK, but it's not personally recommended that you do unless you plan on developing for Android.

If you can, extract the platform-tools folder to C:\AndroidSDK on your computer, for convenience. Then it's highly recommended that you add this folder to your Windows PATH environment, so you can access the tools from any folder via the command prompt with the following instructions:

1. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Advanced Tab > Environment Variables.
2. In the section labeled "System Variables", find the variable named Path.
3. Select Path, then click the Edit button.
   • If you're on a newer version of Windows, click the New button. Enter C:\AndroidSDK\platform-tools.
   • If you're on an older version of Windows, it should just give you a text field with a bunch of folder directories in it. Add this to the end of the field (semicolon included): ;C:\AndroidSDK\platform-tools.
4. Save your changes and close command prompt if you have it open.
5. Open command prompt as administrator. You will want to open it this way any time you want to run ADB or fastboot.
6. Type adb and hit enter. It should give you a list of options.
7. Type fastboot and hit enter. It should say fastboot: usage: no command.
8. If the above commands gave you the expected result, then you've successfully installed the programs.