JAVA_HOME and JRE_HOME environment variables

Windows 2000/XP

1. Open up the system properties (WinKey + Pause), selecting the "Advanced" tab, and the "Environment Variables" button.

2. In this dialog, make sure that JAVA_HOME exists in your user variables or in the system variables and it is set to the location of your JDK, e.g. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_02 and that %JAVA_HOME%\bin or %JRE_HOME% is in your Path environment variable. If not:

3. Add the JAVA_HOME environment variable by then adding the JAVA_HOME variable in the user variables with the value C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_02. Be sure to omit any quotation marks around the path even if it contains spaces. Note: Also be sure that the JAVA_HOME doesn't have a '\' as last character.

4. In the same dialog, add the JRE_HOME environment variable in the user variables with the value %JAVA_HOME%\bin.

5. In the same dialog, update/create the Path environment variable in the user variables and prepend the value %JRE_HOME% to add Java available in the command line.

6. Open a new command prompt (Winkey + R then type cmd) and run

cd %JAVA_HOME%

to verify that it is correctly added.