[Nexus Q General] davidnhutch:
As promised, here are instructions for rooting via Windows7.

Proceed with OP's instructions until the line "adb is installed on PC (and can see the Q)". Your PC will not be able to see the Q. Then open the <android-sdk-folder>\extras\google\usb_driver\android_winusb.inf file manually, and add the following lines both at the bottom of the [Google.NTamd64] or the [Google.NTx86] section (you only need to add it to the correct one depending on whether you have 32-bit or 64-bit but actually you could just add it to both).

; Nexus Q
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_2C10&REV_0216
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_18D1&PID_2C10&REV_0000

You could figure this out yourself by plugging in the Q, going Start menu > devmgmt.msc, then right click the Q > Properties > Advanced > Hardware IDs, and copying and pasting that there.

The first line is for the Nexus Q itself. If you plug it in it will come up as "Nexus" although Win will not be able to install drivers. Then when you get to the part of the instructions where you do 'adb reboot recovery' it will actually drop off the USB bus and come back on, this time identifying itself as "Tungsten", with a different REV number. That's what the second line above is for.

OK, now with all that said, I think I have officially bricked my Q. Perhaps the first person to do so, well ain't that grand. Now I believe it has nothing to do with the above, but something somewhere in the hardware or bootloader got confused. The full story, brief version, is: All was working great, got to point that OP got to, then played around a lot. Then at one point I did 'adb reboot' as I had done many times before, and it appears to have gotten stuck on the boot sequence, with the rotating blue light and the blue center LED light on forever. No signal comes out the HDMI, the tablet can't detect it, and the following happens when a computer is connected : As soon as the Q is power-cycled, it appears for 2 seconds under devmgmt.msc as "OMAP 440", and then instantly drops off the USB bus never to be seen again until power is cycled. Therefore adb cannot see it and I cannot debug. I have tried for hours and nothing works. I suspect it is a Q-specific problem, not a driver problem -- I suspect that the Q is stuck in bootup sequence so never gets to the point where it identifies itself via USB.

I tried a factory reset as described in the manual:

http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/support-kms-prod/SNP_2672134_en_v0

but it never reaches the glowing purple corresponding to a successful factory reset, rather it just goes to the red state as described and then goes back to the rotating blue state. The strange thing is though that the center LED is red while the ring is blue. This does not correspond to any known state in the manual.

If anyone has any ideas I'm happy to hear them, as I now have a nice glowing paperweight. Hey at least it glows. That's kind of cool.

---------- Post added at 09:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:10 PM ----------

Ya, I did, but get to where you said "will turn blue again" (it does), "(take your hands off now)" (I do), "and then purple" (and here it doesn't, it just stays with the blue rotating spot... :-/

Ya, I would but the problem is I can't fastboot because it's not being recognized by USB as described in a post I just barely posted to this thread... So 'fastboot ...' doesn't do anything. Hmmm... Thanks for the advice though... Will perhaps add it to my bowls collection