Install Android 8.0 Oreo-Based EMUI 8 on Huawei Honor 9

Huawei’s child company, Honor released their latest smartphone in the flagship series which was named as the Huawei Honor 9. This smartphone is also the successor to the Huawei Honor 8 which was announced by the company last year. The Huawei Honor 9 resembles the Honor 8 in every way possible as the design of the Honor 9 is same as the Honor 8. Also, there is still a dual camera setup on the back which was also seen on the Honor 8. However, the smartphone was released on Android Nougat and the latest update to Android Oreo was pending on the smartphone.

Now, we have known that the company has started to roll out the official update to Android Oreo which is based on EMUI which is a custom skin from Huawei and the latest version of EMUI along with the latest version of Android has started to reach the Huawei Honor 9 devices around the world. Talking about the latest version of EMUI, we have known that the update comes with EMUI 8 which is based on Android 8.0 Oreo and it will bring many features to the smartphone apart from all the goodness that comes with Android 8.0 Oreo.

One thing to note, however, is that the update has already been released by the company but only a few of the Huawei Honor 9 smartphones have received the update so it is possible that the update may be rolled out in patches. Thus, it would be a long time until your Huawei Honor 9 gets this update based on your current location. Also, we have known that installing this update is a little tricky task even though you have the packages so we have compiled a guide down below so that you can find it easier to follow this guide step-by-step and install Android Oreo on your Honor 9.

Also, we would like to tell you that the official update builds for all the regions are not available yet and we have only received the builds of Android Oreo for the C900 variants of the Honor 9 as well as the Chinese variants so there would be some tweaking that needs to be done in order to install Android 8.0 Oreo on the variants other than the ones that have been mentioned above.

This guide was provided by XDA recognized member, OldDroid who says that all the files that have been included in the guide apart from the update files have been compiled during the process of installation and the TWRP recovery that has been included below is not recommended to be used for daily usage.

Note

• Keep your Huawei Honor 9’s battery above 50% in order to proceed with the installation process otherwise, you could risk bricking your device.
• It is recommended to backup the current build of your smartphone so that you will not lose all the important data after fresh installation.

Prerequisites

• You will need to have TWRP custom recovery installed on your Honor 9. If you are unaware of the steps to do this, you can follow our tutorial to Install TWRP on your Huawei Honor 9.
• You should have ADB and Fastboot installed on your Laptop or Computer. If you don’t already have this setup on your PC, you can follow this guide to Install ADB and Fastboot on Windows

Downloads

• First of all, you will have to download the Official Android 8.0 Oreo update for the Honor 9 and transfer the folder named L09-B321 to the SD card on your device | Download
• Also, you will have to download the TWRP files named twrp-3.1.1-nougat-stf.img and twrp-3.1.1-oreo-stf.img from here.
• Download SuperSU zip file from this link.
• You also need to have a custom root explorer installed on your device like Root Browser | Download

Steps to install Android 8.0 Oreo on your Huawei Honor 9

• Make sure that you have followed all the steps mentioned in the Prerequisites section and downloaded all the files mentioned in the Downloads section
• Once done, reboot your device in bootloader mode and open command prompt window on your PC where you have installed the ADB and Fastboot files.
• Now, install TWRP for Nougat via Fastboot by entering the below command at the command prompt window on PC:

fastboot flash recovery twrp-3.1.1-nougat-stf.img

• Once the TWRP recovery is installed, power off your device and press and hold Power + Volume Up button to boot into recovery.
• Now, you will have to connect your device to the PC via a USB cable.
• Now, Go to TWRP -> Advanced and tap on Terminal as you will need to enter the below mentioned commands:

dd if=/external_sd/STF_RECOVERY_NoCheck.img of=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/recovery_a
dd if=/external_sd/STF_RECOVERY_NoCheck.img of=/dev/block/bootdevice/by-name/recovery2_a
echo --update_package=/sdcard/update.zip > /cache/recovery/command
echo --update_package=/sdcard/update_data_full_public.zip >> /cache/recovery/command
echo --update_package=/sdcard/update_full_STF-L09_hw_normal.zip >> /cache/recovery/command

• Now, you will have to reboot into recovery once again. In order to do this, you have to enter the following command in the same terminal:

reboot recovery

• Now, the installation of Android Oreo on your device should have started. However, there are still some steps left to properly install Android Oreo on your device. You will notice that few things will be missing like boot animation, sounds and theme store so you will have to do the below steps to fix this.
• You will have to reboot your device into bootloader mode again which can be down by pressing Volume Up + Power button.
• Once in bootloader mode, install TWRP for Oreo which you should have downloaded from the Downloads section by executing the following commands in Command Prompt:

fastboot flash recovery_ramdisk twrp-3.1.1-oreo-stf.img

• Now, you will have to power off your device and boot into newly installed TWRP recovery once again by pressing the Volume Down + Power button.
• After that, select and flash the SuperSU zip file inside TWRP which was downloaded above.
• Now, install any root browser like Root Browser which has been mentioned in the Downloads section.
• Navigate to cust -> hw in Root Browser and rename the folder named normal to eu
• After this, go to version -> special_cust -> STF-L09 -> hw and rename folder named normal to eu
• Now, reboot and you will have all the things working on your Huawei Honor 9 along with official Android Oreo update.

It is also recommended that you factory reset and unroot your device after the process of installation of Android Oreo has been finished on the Honor 9 but it is not compulsory to do so.

You will need to follow this guide step-by-step in order to have a proper installation of Android Oreo on your Honor 9. Apart from that, if you have any questions regarding the guide then comment on your queries in the comments section down below so that we can try and solve them.

source: xda