How to set java_home on Windows 7?

Question

I went to the Environment Variables in 'System' in the control panel and made two new variables, one for user variables and one for system variables. Both were named JAVA_HOME and both pointing to

C:\Sun\SDK\jdk\bin

But for some reason, I still get the below error when running a Java command...

BUILD FAILED
C:\Users\Derek\Desktop\eclipse\eclipse\glassfish\setup.xml:161: The following error  occurred while executing this line:
C:\Users\Derek\Desktop\eclipse\eclipse\glassfish\setup.xml:141: The following error occurred while executing this line:
C:\Users\Derek\Desktop\eclipse\eclipse\glassfish\setup.xml:137: Please set java.home to a JDK installation

Total time: 1 second
C:\Users\Derek\Desktop\eclipse\eclipse\glassfish>lib\ant\bin\ant -f setup.xml
Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\tools.jar
Buildfile: setup.xml

How can I fix this problem?

Answer 1

Find JDK Installation Directory

First you need to know the installation path for the Java Development Kit.

Open the default installation path for the JDK:

C:\Program Files\Java

There should be a subdirectory like:

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_172

Note: one has only to put the path to the jdk without /bin in the end (as suggested on a lot of places). e.g. C:\Java\jdk1.8.0_172 and NOT C:\Java\jdk1.8.0_172\bin !

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Set the JAVA_HOME Variable

Once you have the JDK installation path:

1. Right-click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab, then click the Environment Variables button.
3. Under System Variables, click New.
4. Enter the variable name as JAVA_HOME.
5. Enter the variable value as the installation path for the Java Development Kit.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Apply Changes.

Note: You might need to restart Windows

The complete article is here, on my blog: Setting JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows.