Virtuous Ten Studio IDE for Reverse Engineering the Apks and Mods

I curse myself for being not aware of this wonderful IDE, which was developed some awesome developers. It's more like an Visual C++ IDE for the Android reverse engineering, it is very clean and make life much easier with its integrated environment and the folder structures it uses, after trying this, AndroidMultitool looks very premitive, never the less, Multitool has one advantage, which came to to help to crack one of the Apks recently, that it allows to sign separately, that way you can add some files inside the apk built and then sign it, which when I tried was not possible with this IDE. But this is not the case always.

Here is a screen shot of how it looks,

• The best part of this is 
• The smali sytax highlight and the Java code generation with so much ease, 
• The tools that are integrated into
• Easy navigation from the project source path to the binary path etc. 
• Also best thing is after you have built the binary, you can directly push into the device, no need to copy and install on device, just a click.
• And You can get the apks directly from the phone without having use another shell prompt or adb to pull them from the /data/app folder.

Overall this makes the job very easy, and hence you spend more time on finding the right thing rather than in doing it. 

Android Application Hacking

As most of you know android is based JAVA, and it runs a Linux kernel. It uses a Dalvik Virtual Machine, and which is bit different from the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Dalvik code since it is based on Java, we can have all the fun of java. I.e. We can decompile an Apk and generate the source code and them modify whatever we want to and then recompile to generate an custom application. This is all because of the DVM byte codes. If it were to be C language, it would not have been possible. 

I would like to write in detail as to how we can hack an application and different tips and tricks to be used, which I come across while doing such stuff. I am warning you, hacking is only for educational purpose, and I do not support unethical hacking. 

There are some good tools around which would actually simplify our process of decompiling, compiling, and signing of an app. And my preferred application is AndroidMultitool 

Here is the link to download the same, and usage details can be found in the same place, and I do not talk much about it, other than the link. But all I can say is that this is an wonderful tool, which makes the process super quick. 

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2326604

First of all, you must know that your phone must be rooted to get access to these APKs and once rooted, this can be found at /data/app folder. Do a grep and find out where is the APK to be hacked. 

Some of the hacking tips now. 

Removing ads from the application. 

You must understand that the ads generate revenues for the developer and so we must support them, having said that, we can always get rid of it for many reasons, as it consumes lot of your 3G data. So it is your final decision what you want to do with it. We have different ways to go with it.

• You can install some ad blocking apps which would actually modify your host file in Linux to block all the ad sites, which would not allow the app to fetch ad and show. 
• But some ads would show local ad banners when network connections are not available.
• Some apps would need internet connection for their working, so we can't disable internet connection in first place. 
• Some would leave a blank space in the screen which is reserved for the ads, which eat up lot of screen real estate. 
• Having said all this blocking the network connection for this app may not be so convenient, but it would be easy to do this for most of the apps, and most apps don’t leave space when network connection is not available, and hence this should be considered as the first preferred option. :)
• You can find some very good apps for firewall, which can do this for you. I personally use Droid Wall to do handle the firewall. 
• You can remove the ad content from the XML layout and recompile the app.
• You need to search for the string @id/ad in all the xml files in resource folder, then use some common sense to change the height and width to zero. (0.0dip). Sometimes, you can remove this lines completely. 
• If the app crashes after removing these lines, then it could be that these resources are accessed with in the code, by index and not by name, in that case, we may not be able to remove them, we can hide them by setting and android: visibility="invisible" or "gone". Gone would completely remove it, and invisible would make it transparent, but the screen real estate will not be recovered for other elements. 

Hacking the Android Apps (Getting Pro Features on Free Apps)

It may not be always possible to get the pro features on Free apps, but most of the times, we see that the Free app would have all the features in the application, but it would be blocked. In such cases we can search for some strings in the application project which we have decompiled, and try to figure out functions where they are blocked then unblock them.

Most of the cases I have seen till now, are very simple (I mean most complex blocks are easy to crack)

We  need to replace a line as below.

#if-eqz goto :cond_0

goto : cond_0

This is very trivial change, and it can change the flow of code, and then you would be able to use the Pro features. Or sometimes, some functions would be called to get some license checks which would return a zero on nonzero, and later that would be compared in many places, you make the function always return what is expected, your job is done. 

It is more of common sense to go through the smali files generated, and find out. You can check the smali syntax in Google, and that would give some good insight into what exactly the code is doing. 

Hacking android apps

Offlate I got some time to write a blog post to explain how to hack an android app. I always thought that hacking is very difficult. But later i realised that it is not that difficult.

There are few tools you need to start with android hacking. You would need to decompile the apk, and modify the smalli code,and then recompile the same. Zipalign and sign,. you are ready to go.

There are few things to keep in mind when hacking, first you need to study the application to find places where we see the checks, for example may be the screen where the password is asked etc. Then you can search the String resources with the Strings on those screens to find the logic related to F password cheek etc,you can then either change the logic or skip the code, os may be make that function return true inspte of the failed cheek. You are done, then recompile and see if it is working. If it does not don't be disappointed. You need to try again untilyou get the right hack.

Remember one thing most of the times the changes needed are not more than one line of code change. You would be surprised to see such week apps, But whatever they make to protect the app it is easy to hack.

Enough for now. This is kind of Introduction to hacking, you may need to google to find out how to decompile, recompile, sign, zip align etc, but at the end of the day it is fun

Adding more wallpapers to TwWallpaperChooser.apk

Now that I have explored how to de-compile an APK, we can play with its resources and XML files. The first experiment I did was to remove unwanted wallpapers from the TwWallpaperChooser.apk and add what I want it as default.

so here it goes, the basic procedure remains same, as decompile the apk and then recompile the apk.

First de-compile the apk into a folder with the below commands
apktool TwWallpaperChooser.apk TwWallpaperChooser

You would see a folder created with the files as shown below.

The contents of the folder is as shown below.

The important folder, and file you need to know in this case are /res/drawable-hdpi/ this folder contains all the images and their thumbnails, thumbnails are with _small in the name, and are of size 170x142, and main wallpaper images are of size 960x800. You can add more pictures and their thumbnails with the same size.

The reference to these files are made in the file /res/values-hdpi/arrays.xml, you need to edit this file to add more files and then recompile to generate a TwWallpaperChooseNew.apk.

Once you have your New APK ready, open both the NEW and OLD APK in some zip manager such as 7zip, and copy the resources.arsc from NEW apk to OLD apk, and also copy the images you have added into corresponding folders, and you are ready. The apk can be renamed to .zip file, so that it can be opened in zip manager, and once your copy is done, rename back to .apk file. 

You can now copy this file into /system/app and chmod to 644 and you are ready to use new TwWallpaperChooser.apk with added wallpapers. 

Here is few screen shots from what I have done. 

Hope you would enjoy doing it. Let me know if you have any questions.

Decompile/Recompile apk's with ApkTool

You need to have 

1. apktool / aapt, which can be downloaded from code.google.com (Click this link !)
2. Java Runtime Environment(JRE), normally you would have it in your PC. It should be atleast 1.6, make sure to add this in your windows path variables. If you don't have it, then Google !
3. Follow the instructions on the code.google.com to install the apktool and aapt, and unzip them to windows folder. On a windows system it is done like this (copied from the site, you can as well look there for other OS)
• Download apktool-install-windows-* file
• Download apktool-* file
• Unpack both to your Windows directory
4. Now your apktool is ready to use.

Now first things you need to do for decompile any APK is that, to have the framework file for that APK. apktool comes with the standard framework, so you need to execute the following command to get the framework required for decoding.

apktool if your_application.apk

You would get some message like below.

I: Framework installed to: /home/brutall/apktool/framework/2.apk

For more information about these framework files you can refer to google website here. (FrameworkFiles)

Now create a folder for you work, and place your_application.apk file in that folder, and open the command prompt and cd to that folder, and run the following command, you apk would be decompiled. 

apktool d your_application.apk your_application

This would create a folder named your_application with xml, resources, images etc. You can change whatever you want to  (if you know how to change! else do some experiment)

Now that you have changed you can pack them back to apk using apktool, run the following command. 

apktool b your_application your_applicationNew.apk

Now, as you know that signature would be different in this new APK, you have to open both these New and  original APK in a zip manager such as 7zip/Winzip and replace the images if at all you changed into the respective folder inside zip file, and also resources.arsc files.

This would complete the change, you can place it back where ever your apk was before, and ENJOY !!

Feel free to leave a message if it helped you in any way, and also let me know if you face any issues, would love to guide you. A Thanks would cheer me for writing more such posts :)

How to root Galaxy SL (i9003) Gingerbread 2.3.6 XXKPU

I have updated my firmware to Gingerbread 2.3.6 XXKPU and I did not find an easy way to root this firmware.  I had searched enough on web and did not find anything which I thought would work. Tried few promising methods but they did not work.

Lastly I was seeing too many places mentioning about the CF-Root and was wondering what is this. I happen to see a video which shows the PDA to be replaced with the CF-Root corresponding to the XXKPU binary, which can be downloaded form the links in the post here.

Here you can download the CF root for many of the i9003 firmwares. Infact, what ever is your phone (Samsung) you can almost follow the same procedure, and you need to find the right CF-root file. Then the flashing procedure can be found on this you tube video here. Hope this helps everyone.

Configuring CSipSimple SIP client on Galaxy SL for Nymgo

Here is the configuration to be done. These is carefully written to cover most of the points and a hastle free experience when you do the setup. You can refer to nymgo.com site, they have given some basic info, it would serve as reference.

First when adding account, you need to select the Basic Wizard.

Menu Key -> Accounts  -> Add Account  -> Generic Wizards -> Basic

• Account Name: Nymgo
• User: Nymgo User Name
• Server: ata.nymgo.com (no need to give port number even though we knows its 80, it would be taken care by wizard, and if you give, it seems to be not working for me)
• Password: Nymgo Password.

You are almost done !! 

Next thing is that, we should be using UDP for communication, so 

Menu Key (Left Soft Key in Galaxy S) -> Settings -> Network

Do the following settings -> UDP port number set as 5060

Stun should be on -> set it to stun.nymgo.com:80

Set Networks for All outgoing calls.

Settings -> Media

* You need to disable all codecs except below ones

   G729 8Khz (Wideband)

   G729 HKhz (Narrowband)

* Use Samsung Galaxy Hack [ checked ]

* Micro / Speaker amplification can be used if audio is very low, I have used mirco to 5 and audio as it is.

Settings -> Call options

Caller id -> Set to your own number, if you have used caller id feature in Nymgo.

Settings -> Filters 

These can be used when you have enabled the Android integration, and can be used to make sure all numbers starting with +91 (India) can be made to go through phone dialer and International calls through Nymgo, I have enabled it, but its optional, let me know if you have any questions here.

Once the configuration is done, dial 111 from your SIP dialer and wait for Nymgo test service, and you would be able to test if you configuration is working fine, if you could hear your own voice back after recording, then you are ready to use nymgo, feel free to drop your comments and queries, I would be glad to help you.

Some of the useful info when working with ADB on phone

For remounting the system partition as RW on Galaxy SL, (need to be super user)

# mount -o rw,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

For mounting back to RO

# mount -o ro,remount -t yaffs2 /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

Basic ADB commands

# adb push <local_path> <remote_path>

# adb pull <remote_path> <local_path>

# adb install <path_to_apk>

If you have not installed the cp command may not work, the work around would be 

# cat [source_file] > [destination_file]

The command binaries would be located at this location, /system/bin/ And if you had installed busybox, in /system/xbin/ then first the above path is looked for command, and later the below path.

The /system partition has limited memory, so if you try installing too many applications here, then you may run out of space, and its a better idea to delete many of the unwanted bloat applications from there. I have deleted the following apps and they do not be of much use for me. May be if its not useful for you, you can delete them as well. And you can also delete any other apps which are of no use for you.

1. Samsung Apps [They are meant for Bada, and of no use in Android! wonder why its added here!]
2. BuddiesNow.apk/odex
3. thinkdroid.apk/odex [ThinkFree Office - I have installed Polaris Office instead of this, which is much better]
4. Day.apk/odex
5. DualClock.apk/odex
6. SamsungWidget_Calenderclock.apk/odex
7. SamsungWidget_Feedandupdate.apk/odex
8. SamsungWidget_stockclock.apk/odex
9. SamsungWidget_Weatherclock.apk/odex

All the best, and keep a backup of the file before altering or deleting any file inside /system partition, so that you can restore if something goes wrong, and I am not responsible for any thing if at all it goes wrong :)
Some useful tips and tricks about galaxy S/SL can be found here, its quite long, but when free go through.

Install Polaris Office of Galaxy S2 on Galaxy SL i9003

Polaris office is one of the office suite for mobile, similar to the many available for mobile phones. Galaxy SL comes with think free office, which is also good, but formatting, editing are much better in Polaris office. 

You need to have root for installing this application, as it needs to be installed in system folders. I have referred to this post of xda for installation and also downloaded from the link provided there.

Here is the procedure to follow to install the same

1. Extract the files from compressed file

2. Copy apk from app to /system/app

3. Copy files from lib folder to /system/lib

You may have to free some space in /system folder as that partition is of limited size, and you may need to delete unwanted applications and may be you can delete the think free application.

Install Busybox on Samsung i9003 Galaxy SL

First of all let me tell me if busy box is needed for you. Mostly it is needed because the adb shell does not have most of the commands supported such cp (copy), and it makes it difficult when you want to modify something (if you have rooted already) difficult because of unavailability of the commands support. So it is preferred to have Busy box, which has most of the command support, and if you had worked in Linux you would know what is busy box for.

Usually, you need to copy the busy box binary on to whichever folder you need, with the help of any command line tool, then say busybox --install, it should setup the links for all the commands and should work for you. And you may need to add that path into you PATH variable. Somehow after long search, I could not find any such thing working for me. 

But now that this application names 'busybox installer' does exactly the same, and it needs root permissions (to make it install in /system/xbin/ ) and you have the option to install any version of busybox you wish to.

So my search ends here (somehow I had seen this before, and dint want to do it this way, wanted to do it manually). One you have installed it, it will automatically restart your phone. Now you have all the comands available on your phone when connected to adb. Some commands may still be taken from old toolbox, and if you specifically need busy box one, you can override it by typing busybox before it. 

Replace ADB Shell With Putty

If your phone is rooted, you need ADB (Android Debug Bridge) for accessing the phone over command line. And when on Windows you may not be comfortable running the Linux command prompt on Windows. You can always run a telnet server on your android phone, and connect using the Putty, but this needs lot of work, and its not an easy option. 

There is an easy option with the help of ADB, you need to have a modified Putty for this, which has the ADB connection type to choose from, and then you can use Putty as you normally use to. Thanks for senior XDA member sztupy. sztupy has compiled a Putty binary with most of the settings pre-set. Here is a snap shot of the same for your reference.

All you need to do is to set the host name to 'transport-usb' as shown and if port number did not come automatically set it to '5037' and you are done. 

Connect the phone using usb cable ans set the debugging mode on, as you normally do to use with ADB, you can enjoy the familiar Putty interface.

Google Music Beta on Android

You might have heard that Google had launched the music beta service, which is similar to the other Google service which is linked to your Google account, but only limitation as of now is that it is available on in the United States, and it also says that its free for limited period of time. May be only till the beta testing is complete, but I hope to have it continued after that. You can store about 20,000 songs to your account and they will be stored in cloud, so that it can be accessed from any device, such as TAB or Android Phone. You can carry your music collection where ever you go, sound impressive huh? why don't you get one? 

All you need is an US proxy and log into your Google account from the proxy server or VPN and request for one, or if you have a friend who can send invite ask him to send one. So you would get the invite in few days if you have requested for one. 

After the invite is received you can download the music manager from music.google.com and install it. 

• Make sure you keep all your tag information for the songs updated before uploading using Google Music Manager, otherwise it becomes a mess later to organize your music. Google music would organize your music based on the tag information.
• Also make sure that you use the folder upload option rather than windows media player library sync, because mostly if you have updated the tag information recently, it seems to be not working fine. 
• Anyways, follow which ever method, but upload the music, but one thing to remember, while uploading you don't need to be in VPN, and sometimes with VPN, if corporate it will not work.

Now you need android application to use the same music on your android device, but if you are not in US, then the market wont allow you to install from there, even though it is free application. So you need to download it from here, and install using any other method, such as copy to SD card then install by enabling non market application installation in settings.

Once you have installed fortunately, it does not need a VPN to play your music, you can be in any country, Wifi/3G/EDGE/GPRS, it can play the music for you.

Root Samsung Galaxy SL (i9003) Gingerbread 2.3.4 (XXKPH)

I had hard time finding how to root the Samsung Galaxy SL, 2.3.4, XXPKH. There were many blogs and website talking about rooting, but because XXKPH was the latest version and it was 2.3.4, most of the methods mentioned in there does not work. 

The most basic method is to use the SOC (Super One Click) and it does not work with XXKPH, because the kernel exploit cannot be done by Ginger break, and it seems they have closed the loophole which ginger break was using. The original Ginger break method was mentioned in this website, and he has clearly mentioned that it has to be using the usb debugging mode on adb. SOC also uses the same method, and it should be the only way to do it.

Now how do we proceed, I read in a Spanish website for i9000 that the kernel must be replaced with a kernel which can be exploited and then exploit using SOC and replace back the original kernel after installing SU (super user app). I found it something convincing and then tried the method on XDA developer where he talks about flashing the fixed binary and then normal boot again. I was scared to try this before as I do not want to use any modified binary as the XXKPH is very stable, and battery life and GPS are working awesome for me. Any change would only deteriorate the performance, as these people may have done somethign which they are not very sure of.

Here goes the method for XXKPH

• After Flashing to new Firmware , Go to Downloading Mode By pressing volume down + menu button + power button and Flash the Phone Using the PDA file GT-I9003_PDA_XXKPE-fixed.tar
• GT-I9003_PDA-XXKPE-fixed.tar
  
  
• Root USing SOC (Latest version of SOC can be downloaded from here)
• While rooting, you may find that it it stuck at step #6, may be you can disconnect the cable and connect back, and it should do the trick !! (happened with me)
  
  
• Flash PDA with the normalboot.img.tar attached below
• http://forum.xda-developers.com/show...&postcount=146

Note: With the absolutely beautiful ADB exploit I use, titled rageagainstthecage (ratc), absolute ALL devices can be rooted. This is because it exploit is ADB which all devices use. There is an issue though. Some devices have a NAND lock which does not allow you to write to the /system mount. Because of this, you can't copy su, sqlite or busybox to /system/bin. This creates some issues but there is a work around. For things that don't need access to /system (like enabling non-market apps) I can use the ratc exploit to make those changes. If your device cannot use su in /system/bin then you can simple select a checkbox (as of v1.5) that says to use ratc. 

There are 3 levels of "root" we can define:

Level 1: Shell Root (with ratc rooting the adb shell but no /system write access)

Level 2: Temporary Root (/system/bin/su installed but lost on reboot)

Level 3: Full Root (/system/bin/su installed and sticks)

Some devices have a NAND lock. SuperOneClick will only give a Shell root until you remove this lock.

Gingerbreak uses rageagainstthecage,  is a root exploit via a fork bomb. Some antivirus program may raise alert for malicious content while unzipping, and here is the explanation for it. 

It IS a potentially malicious payload, BUT it is being used with owner's consent to root the phone. The DreamDroid malware use exactly same payload - they are trojans, but this is a helpful tool. It IS a dangerous tool in the wrong hands, but this is a root exploit, so you should exercise common sense and a little understanding of what it does and how it works.

My Favorite Android Games

There are thousands of games out there in market most of them are paid or free, but which one do you like, I did refer to people’s blog to find it out, and many like variety of games. But here is the list of paid and free games which I liked, and I play almost every day.

Angry Birds Rio is a variant of original Angry birds, so obviously it’s a FUN game, here you have different types of levels which makes it more attractive compared to the original game. They keep updating, so more fun to come in future. It’s free game but comes with Ads, if you disable the data connection while playing this game then you won’t see any ads, that’s the best way to deal with it.

Angry Birds Seasons is another variant where in you can play them in different seasons such as Christmas, in snow falls etc., more or less same as the original one, but here you have some bonus levels if you complete all levels in 3 stars, so kind of challenging and keeps the game spirit on till the end of the game

Angry Birds (Original) is a fun game, and you will get addicted to this game so fast that every night you have to play this before going to sleep, that’s the level of addiction.

Its whole aim is to use some physics knowledge and make the birds jump on the pigs and destroy them, who takes the eggs of these birds. There will be so many obstacles when you try to destroy them, so plan well and achieve the goal.

Bebbled may not be interesting to that extent, but it’s a good time pass game. There is a target pointes to be made for each level, and until you make those many points you wont be allowed to go to next level. You need to touch the bubbles of the same color to make them disappear and make points out of it. More bubbles of same colors come together the more points you get.

Bonsai Blast is the ZUMA game which we use to play in computers, where there would be a FROG at the center and colored balls would come and you need to shoot them before reaching the end point. If you make the balls of same color count more than three, then they disappear, lot more weapons etc., are there but you need to install it to explore. It is good one, but not as good as the ZUMA, but still a time pass game.

Bubble Blast 2, I have never played the first version. This one has lot of levels, may be I would never be able to complete. Its just a time pass game, you don’t need to know anything, and its very difficult to plan the game also, but over all it’s a time pass game. Keep touching the bubbles and they grow and finally blast, there are some restrictions on the number of touches you need to finish blasting all the bubbles, sometimes if becomes so difficult that you may have to take an hint. Only one hint per day.

Klondike Solitaire  is the best solitaire game I have come across for android devices, and this one is simple and intuitive, and easy to use game. A very good time pass game. Levels are somewhat difficult.

Just disable the data connections, else the ads would be irritating.

Magic Marker is not a game, but it’s a FUN app, with which you can make your phone a drawing board, and draw in different colors, which come as magic lights. If you want to write something and show to someone special may be this would come in handy.

I have the pretty old version which does not have ads, but recent version comes with ads, so you may have some irritating ads popping up in the screen.

Need For Speed (NFS) Shift, if you are a fan of NFS and or a fan of racing, then this is one game you must buy, such an awesome graphics and such a wonderful game play, you would love it.

There are different tracks and different cars. You need to buy the cars from the money you make from racing and build your career.

Paper Toss is an game for time pass when you don’t have any work to do. It’s as simple as throwing a paper into a dust bin.

There are different levels such as office, toilet, airport, basement etc., where the distance would be different and the fan would be placed in different locations.

Pool Master Pro is the best pool game I have come across for android. It has such awesome graphics that you keep playing and get addicted to it.

There is one more game which is 3D but then its not as good as this. Its free and ad free. So go for it.

 

Slice it! is a game mostly for kids, but still it’s a FUN game you can play. You will be given objects of different shape and you need to slice them into N equal parts by certain number of counts.

Initially the game would be easier, and it keeps becoming complex as you go up. You may have to check your geometric skills once again. Its not as simple as slicing a piece of cake. Mind it!

Setup Hot mail on your Android device

This solution article provided information on how to setup your Hotmail account on Android phones.

Account settings and their level of support will vary across Android phones. While the steps to configure push email with synced contacts and calendar will vary, we have found these steps to work across a number of phones:

1. Select “Email” client on phone.
2. Press menu and select “Add account”
3. Enter full Hotmail address: e.g. username@hotmail.com or username@live.com
4. Enter password
5. Select “Manual setup”
6. Select “Exchange” when prompted for “What type of account is this?”
7. Domain/Username, enter full Hotmail address: e.g. username@hotmail.com. (Note: if the device only says “Domain”, it should be left blank. If the device says “Username”, then enter the full Hotmail address. On some devices, the Domain/Username may be pre-populated incorrectly and should be erased.
8. Type in password. (may already be filled in)
9. Server name. Enter: m.hotmail.com for server name. (Note: this field may be pre-populated incorrectly depending on device).
10. Make sure box “Use secure connection (SSL)” is checked.
11. Select “Next”
12. Select desired account options for inbox checking frequency, number of days to synchronize, send email by default, notifications and contacts/calendar sync. Select “Next”
13. Depending on device you may be prompted for account color and account name (e.g. “Hotmail”)
14. Select “Next” and your Hotmail is set-up and ready to go!

If these steps aren’t working, you can always access Hotmail through your phones browser at www.hotmail.com

How to install Android (x86) on Laptop

Everyone is talking about android, the mobile OS from the internet giant Google. It is an open operating system for mobile phones, not meant for laptops. But already people have started porting the code to x86 machine and succeeded in booting laptops. 

Keeping in mind that, it is not a full fledged porting, depending on your laptop many things may work, and it may also turn out that it may not boot as well, so the call is yours, but nothing harm in trying out. Because the method I am going to explain you is using an USB thumb drive, so in case if it does not, just format the disk.

You need to go to Andorid x86 project website and download the latest stable release iso image. You need UNetBootin software to download this install this ISO image on your thumb drive, you can download it from here.

You need to select the ISO option and give path to the .iso image you have downloaded, and make sure you select the correct device for USB, otherwise your data on hard disk will be wiped off. The example screen shot is as shown below.

Once the OK, is clicked, download will start, after the downloading to USB is complete, change the boot setting in BIOS to boot from USB and you are ready to boot Android x86, have fun. In my case, I was able to access my wifi router on my android, and it was fun browsing in Andorid. Unlike on virtual machine, the speed is really good on a laptop.

This is the screen shot of what I ran on my laptop, It's the mobile desktop scaled up. Still its a fun !