Android Development on Windows using an Intellibook Tablet

Earlier this year I acquired a 7 inch Intellibook Android tablet by ordering a trial subscription for a magazine on Java programming. When I tried to use it for Android development on Windows today, I couldn’t find a suitable USB driver. It took me a while to find out that the driver released by Google for their own devices would actually work.

Intellibook Tablet

Here is how to install it for the Intellibook tablet:

  1. Download the Google USB driver package for Windows.
  2. When finished, the driver is located in <android-sdk>\extras\google\usb_driver\, and you need to modify the file android_winusb.inf contained within. Add the following lines twice, once in each section [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTamd64]:
    ;Intellibook
    %SingleAdbInterface%        = USB_Install, USB\VID_2207&PID_0010
    %CompositeAdbInterface%     = USB_Install, USB\VID_2207&PID_0010&MI_01
    
  3. Connect the tablet to the PC and install the modified driver.device_manager
  4. Create the file %USERPROFILE%\.android\adb_usb.ini containing the vendor code 0x2207 or add it if the file exists:
    echo 0x2207 >> "%USERPROFILE%\.android\adb_usb.ini"
    
  5. Remember to enable developer options and USB debugging on the device.

This worked for me, but of course there is no guarantee since Google does not support this device. On the other hand, it might also work for other “no-name” devices lacking suitable drivers. To find the hardware id string needed to modify the driver’s *.inf file connect the device to the PC, locate it in the Device Manager, and right-click to open properties -> details -> hardware-id. Try at your own risk…