Setting up Android Studio: The Installation Process

Android Studio is the official IDE for Android development, made by Google. It has an intelligent code editor, and supports debugging, performance tooling, a flexible build system, and an instant build/deploy system.

Before beginning the installation of Android Studio, check that your system meets the following requirements:

• 4 GB RAM minimum, 8 GB RAM recommended
• 4 GB of available disk space minimum (500 MB for IDE + 1.5 GB for Android SDK and emulator system image)
• 1280 x 800 minimum screen resolution

You also need to have Java Development Kit (JDK) setup in your system. You can check if your system has JDK installed by typing javac -version in your command prompt. If not, download the installation file from JAVA SE Downloads.

Click Download below the JDK & choose the most recent JDK for your operating system.

Once the download completes, install JDK in your system. Make a note of the location where JDK is installed, for example C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_102.

Get the latest version of Android Studio from the Official Android Developer’s site. Make sure that you choose to download the .exe file with the Android SDK (~1.32GB), else you will have to download the SDK during setup separately.

Installing Android Studio

1. Launch the .exe file that you downloaded.
2. You will be greeted by the Welcome screen.
3. On Clicking next, you will come to the Choose components screen. Select Android SDK. If you have an Intel based processor, select Android Virtual Device (because you can run Intel HAXM to speed up the Android Emulator) as well else it is better to use Genymotion as your emulator or an actual Android device.
4. In the next screen, choose the installation location of Android Studio and SDK. It need not necessarily be in the C:\ drive.
5. Choose to create a Start Menu folder for Android Studio if you want.
6. On clicking Install, the installation process will begin and will take a few minutes.
7. On completion, click on Finish to complete installation process.

On some systems, Android Studio does not find where the JDK is installed during installation. If you encounter this problem, you need to set an environment variable indicating the correct location.

Select Start menu > Computer > System Properties > Advanced System Properties. Then open Advanced tab > Environment Variables and add a new system variable JAVA_HOME that points to your JDK folder, that you made a note of before (C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_102).

Let’s get started with Android!