If you see “adb command not found,” go back and make sure you have your PATH variable (specifically the part that includes the path to the platform tools) written out correctly.

One of the first things I do when I set up a new PC is install the Android platform tools so that I can use ADB, Fastboot and other platform tools from anywhere within the operating system. It has ...

Google has made ADB and fastboot available as a standalone package, meaning users no longer need to download them with Android Studio or the Android SDK.

In this case, you need to download the Platform Tools to run the ADB command, which is necessary to sideload apps on Windows 11 using Windows Subsystem for Android.

You can get the platform tools for Windows, Linux, or Mac direct from Google's servers. You get a ZIP file containing the platform tools folder with ADB, fastboot, and a few other tools.

Last week, we showed you how to install ADB and fastboot on any OS. If you're not sure why you'd want to go to the (relatively minor) trouble, here are just some of the useful things you can do ...