What You'll Need

You'll need a number of things to successfully root your HTC Hero for Sprint.

Things you'll need:

• HTC Hero for Sprint
  
• A USB cable (came with your phone).
• A computer (it's right in front of you).
• The Android SDK for your OS.
• HTC Sync 2.0.40 (or higher)
  

The Android SDK is the Android Developers Platform. It comes with most of the tools that are needed to do development work on the Android system (including building custom ROMs, making apps, etc.). What you'll need it for is gaining access to your phone's "root folder" through your computer. You'll be downloading this to your computer NOT your phone.

IMPORTANT
To determine whether you need this last object, you'll need to have a look at your phone:
From your home screen, press "Menu" and tap "Settings".
Scroll down and tap "About Phone".
Scroll down and top "Software Information".
If your Software Number is: 2.27.651.6 (or higher) download this to your computer NOT your phone:HTC Sprint Hero MR 2.27.651.5.exe

Android SDK
Now that you've downloaded the Android SDK, you'll need to extract it and if you're not comfortable working from the command line, you'll want to extract it to a location on your disc that isn't too dark. A really convenient place to extract the SDK to would be C:\ but for the purposes of these tutorials, I'll always refer to the directory in which the SDK is stored as C:\...\android-sdk-windows (if you're having trouble at this point, I suggest not attempting to root your phone).