Android emulator-arm.exe crashing in Windows XP

I have tried to install Android SDK (r12) to start playing with developing applications for the platform. For no reason, I picked Windows XP Sp3 as my development OS.

Customary to getting started with new programming language or platform is to create the equivalent "Hello World". The sample program was small and easy to digest but running it for the first time was not a good experience.

The default Android Virtual Device configuation as per the tutorial keeps crashing on Windows XP. This is the message that I am seeing:

emulator-arm.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. 

We are sorry for the inconvenience

Searching the blogosphere shows the following sites that standout:

• Emulator.exe not working properly (stackoverflow)
• Emulator crash on QVGA-L resolution (Google Code)

The information from Stackoverflow did give a good hint as to what might be the issue. It seems like the Android SDK, specially the emulator, does not like spaces in the directories. With VirtualBox virtualization at my disposal, I started poking around with the installer.

To make the long trial and error short, below are the key changes to make Android development a little smoother.

Before installing the Android SDK (installer_r12-windows.exe), set the following system environment variable:

ANDROID_SDK_HOME = d:\home

Of course you have to change d:\home to your desired folder. Ensure that the folder exists, this is important before starting with the installation. By the way, this is the folder where the Android virtual device(s) will be created.

Now, install Android SDK. I would suggest to use c:\android\sdk for the destination folder.  If not, ensure that the path location does not include any spaces and that the individual folder length is less than or equal to eight characters.

With all this set, continue with the installation of Android software development environment and enjoy!!!

~ts