I installed Android Studio on an old laptop. 6GB of RAM and Windows 7 with JRE7. The machine shows its age sometimes, but I figured I would give it a shot. I got everything setup alright, but it really takes its time spinning up new projects running a configuration. I even got my Nexus 7 switched over to developer mode so that I could debug on it and sent the blank activity "hello world" app over.
So I have this other computer, a desktop, with a more modern processor and 16GB of RAM and I figure I'll give that a try. Oh yeah, it's running Windows 8.1. Android Studio installed and I made sure to update the SDK's and install the Google USB driver in the Android Studio SDK manager. Still going good at this point. Then I plug in the Nexus and the fun stops.
I keep getting this port reset failure. I was expecting a message, but not that one. On the laptop I waited for the warning message opened Device Manager and then installed the Google USB Driver from the location listed in the SDK manager (hover tooltip). After that the old laptop could connect. The newer desktop really doesn't want to play ball though.
When I dug deeper it looked like Windows was trying to use Asus-AI-Charger as the driver for the Nexus. I Googled it and it's a free app so I uninstalled it and restarted the machine. No such luck. Windows 8 is still giving me that port reset failure message. Even before that ... and after... I tried changing the drivers and pointing at the Google USB Drivers like I did on the Windows 7 machine, but it keeps coming back with the message that the drivers are already up-to-date. However, when I look at the driver info it comes back with this message that no drivers have been installed.
At this point, I'm doing a mini freak out. Did I fry my tablet? It turns out the answer is no. It turns on fine and the apps run ... AND when I take it back over to the old Windows 7 machine and plug it in the laptop reads it just fine. The laptop says "oh yeah, there's my old buddy Nexus7".
So why is the desktop throwing a fit? Why can't it just get over it and let me install those drivers? Anyone run into problems like this before or have any ideas on what to do next?
I got it to work.
I kept searching online and I noticed that a few people succeeded at fixing the problem by using a different cable.
The Nexus 7 uses a MicroUSB (2.0) cable. I had two extra on hand. One from an LG phone and another from I can't remember where. The LG phone microUSB had the same result as the Nexus 7 microUSB. The [I don't know where from] microUSB worked though.
So just to recap...
The Nexus 7 microUSB work on my Windows 7 Sony Vaio laptop, but it did not work on my Windows 8.1 ASUS desktop.
In order to connect to my Windows 8.1 ASUS desktop I need to NOT USE the Nexus 7 microUSB and REMEMBER to use a microUSB from some other device that I clearly don't even own anymore.
Hallelujah!