How To Set Up Environmental Variables In Java

[Robert Berry]

Hello, Java newbie here. I am trying to make my javac compiler work. I believe I have set up my environmental variables properly, but the command prompt still says it does not recognize as an internal or external command. When I enter "where javac" I get "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\bin\javac.exe". But when I type in just "javac" I get the it doesn't recognize message. Any help with this would be much appreciated, I have not sarcastically tried doing this 10 to 20 times, watched many YouTube videos, and read many forums as well as posts from Oracle. I seem to be doing everything right but for some reason it still will not work. Thanks for the help.

[Jesper de Jong]

Welcome to the Ranch.

Did you close and open the command prompt again after setting the environment variables? The Windows command prompt does not immediately pick up changes in the environment variables.

What output does the following command give you: echo %PATH%

Watch out that there are no spaces in the PATH where they should not be. Directories in the PATH must be separated by ; (semi-colon) and you should not put spaces before or after the semi-colons in the PATH. (Some people make the mistake of putting a space after the sem-colon: "...;<space>C:\Program Files\...").

[Tim Holloway]

Java is designed so that you can have (and use!) multiple brands/versions of JVM on the same machine at the same time. Unlike certain other vendors products I could mention...

Conventionally, you would want to set the system environment variable JAVA_HOME to have a value of "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45" and add %JAVA_HOME%\bin to your PATH. That would give you defaults that match what you are looking for.

Oops. I forgot the thing about spaces in path names. If your version of windows supports it, the easiest way to avoid that is to find the 8.3 equivalent name (typically, it's "PROGRA~1") and use that instead of "Program Files". Otherwise the parser stops looking after it hits the space and results in an improper path search.

[Robert Berry]

Thank you for the responses.

When I type in echo %PATH% I get this ...;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\bin.

I do not believe there are any spaces between semicolons in the path. I have also done as suggested and put %JAVA_HOME%\bin in my path after creating the JAVA_HOME variable and this has not worked either. I have not tried using Program Files as one word or a new word. How should I do that?

Thanks for the help.

[Knute Snortum]

When I enter "where javac" I get "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\bin\javac.exe".

If you get what you did from a "where javc" command, then the problem is NOT in your PATH (assuming there is a file "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\bin\javac.exe". Have you checked?)

But when I type in just "javac" I get the it doesn't recognize message.

What exactly is the error message?

[Campbell Ritchie]

Welcome again

You should move your Java1.8 installation folder to the beginning of the PATH. Otherwise if there is an older version of Java® anywhere else in the PATH, you will end up using a newer version of javac and older version of java, and the older version of java won't like that.
ProgramFiles should not be one word. Try putting "quotes" round the entire PATH string because of the space.
Try this instruction at a new command line:-
set PATH="c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\bin";%PATH%
and see what happens. That instruction is very useful; it can reset the version of Java® you are using for the lifetime of that command window.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Also try
"c:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_45\bin\javac" -version
with and without the quotes and see what happens. That instruction includes the entire path to javac and should enable you to find the tool. Also open the Java folder with windows explorer and confirm there is a bin folder with java.exe, javac.exe etc in.

[Robert Berry]

It finally worked! I have no idea what it took, or why it didn't work the first 20 times, but I finally managed to print out Hello, World! Thanks for all the help!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Well done