 <p>It sounds like your problem is more related to developing on Windows than the Android SDK itself. I got it up and running pretty quickly on my 64 bit Win7 box, but I really prefer to develop in Linux. Once I sorted some silly issues with eclipse dependencies out, it was incredibly simple to run and keep updated.</p> <p>I suspect most hardcore android devs (and the people who build the tools at Google) run Linux of some flavor on their boxes - so it isn't surprising that the tools work well there.</p> <p>Eclipse isn't really the alpha version of websphere - it's a perfectly usable and stable tool in it's own right. Fedora isn't the alpha for RHEL either - it's just more bleeding edge. You can run a perfectly stable Fedora system, but most companies go with RHEL because of the support options.</p> <p>The Android plugins and SDKs are certainly under active development, which is a good thing. That doesn't necessarily make them Beta quality.</p> <p>Eclipse is used incredibly widely. It's adequately tested. The Android SDKs work just fine for a majority of users. I'm sorry you had problems with them, but as you admitted, you're running an unusual configuration. </p> <p>Windows is designed to run with every user as an administrator - Development tools usually assume this, with hardware development tools doubly so. It's a reasonable assumption. Even under Linux, Android development really works better with root access. You're trying to do things with the underlying hardware that normal users shouldn't be able to do.</p>