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eclipse01

macrumors 68030
Original poster
May 16, 2011
2,844
404
Eau Claire, WI
Lollipop made my Nexus 7 basically unusable, is there an easy way (without rooting or anything) to go back to Kit Kat?
 

tbayrgs

macrumors 604
Jul 5, 2009
7,467
5,097
Lollipop made my Nexus 7 basically unusable, is there an easy way (without rooting or anything) to go back to Kit Kat?

It's not difficult but certainly not a simple one-click type option--you'll need to unlock the bootloader and flash the stock image of KitKat. I manually flashed Lollipop on my Nexus 7 yesterday without issue--took about 10 minutes.

Assuming you're doing this on a Mac, here's the video I used for reference as it had been a while since I'd done something like this.

Go here to get the Android SDK and here to get the image of KitKat for your Nexus 7 (look for 4.4.4 link under factory images of 'Razor').

Take your time, watch the tutorial before starting and you'll have no problems. Good luck.
 

khha4113

macrumors regular
Oct 12, 2013
202
11
It's not difficult but certainly not a simple one-click type option--you'll need to unlock the bootloader and flash the stock image of KitKat. I manually flashed Lollipop on my Nexus 7 yesterday without issue--took about 10 minutes.

Assuming you're doing this on a Mac, here's the video I used for reference as it had been a while since I'd done something like this.

Go here to get the Android SDK and here to get the image of KitKat for your Nexus 7 (look for 4.4.4 link under factory images of 'Razor').

Take your time, watch the tutorial before starting and you'll have no problems. Good luck.
I used Nexus tool kit to load Lollipop on my Nexus 5.. It is 1-click application that do all the work for you.

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Isn't this forum called "Alternatives to iOS and iOS devices" for a reason?
Well, it's still better to try android forums though. I recommend XDA's.
 

khha4113

macrumors regular
Oct 12, 2013
202
11
Actually, my understanding is that you must unlock the bootloader, but I'm guessing that part of the process was included in the toolkit.
I'm sorry, you're right. What I mean is there is a program that can do it for you like Wugfresh.

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You don't need to, but it is as simple as opening a command prompt and typing 'Fastboot OEM Unlock'
To someone that is not familiar to the process, it might be intimidating.
 

Lloydbm41

Suspended
Oct 17, 2013
4,019
1,456
Central California
Isn't that actually just the command that does the unlocking?

Yep. That is all I was referring to.

After that it is 'flash-all.bat' from the unzipped tgz image

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I'm sorry, you're right. What I mean is there is a program that can do it for you like Wugfresh.

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To someone that is not familiar to the process, it might be intimidating.

Wugfresh or downloading the SDK and using fastboot commands. Is either any more intimidating than the other? I prefer to be in control of how a program works, rather than letting someone's app do it.

Plus, you don't learn anything with wugfresh and if something goes wrong, you are clueless on what to do to fix the issue.
 

iososx

macrumors 6502a
Aug 23, 2014
859
6
USA
Lollipop made my Nexus 7 basically unusable, is there an easy way (without rooting or anything) to go back to Kit Kat?

I have years of experience with both Android and iPhones. Taking personal responsibility to learn your devices will save you hours of wasted time relying on others every time you have a problem.

Never use the first version of any OS, wait until it's been out for a few months, some bug fixes have been released and reports on the web are good. Saves you the problems you have now.

Go to XDA developers forum, or AndroidForums for easy answers to your issue. Study a little now and be happy that it's very easily solved.
 
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