Rooting your Nexus 7

Well, of course you'd want to root your +Google Nexus 7. I've rooted mine the very next day after I bought it, primarily to be able to create backups. As everybody, and his dog, knows, backups are essential but way too often forgotten habit, and what a good one! Make your backups!

Anyway, Nexus 7, actually +Android itself offers some backup features (to be covered in one of the future posts), but my tool of choice is +Titanium Track 's Titanium Backup (PRO, to be exact). It requires root access, though, so you'll have to root your device.

And how to do that? Use Google Nexus 7 Toolkit. It is a simple tool that does everything for you, just follow the instructions.




A few tips:

- Run the toolking with administrator priviledges.

My Windows 8 complained about starting it if run as a regular user.

- Toolkit requires drivers to access your device. I had to install driver manually on my Windows 8 machine. (Options 1, 3)

- Rooting will reset your device to factory settings! You'll want to backup your applications and setting before you root it. But how, if Titanium backup requires root access? Well, Toolkit offers backup/restore procedures. Follow them! Backup everything, including system apps, and then simply restore them when rooted.

- If you'll ever want to restore unrooted, stock ROM on your device, Toolkit offers that possibility, too! Yes, it is that good!

Enjoy your newly rooted device!

And of course, rooting is not very complicated procedure, but if you're really really new to Android, and maybe computers in general, it is probably better to skip rooting for now. Plus that standard disclaimer: it works for me, and you'll doing it at your own responsibility. Read and follow the instructions.