Installation Notes

JavaTM 2 SDK, Standard Edition
Version 1.3.1
Microsoft Windows 95 / 98 / 2000 / ME / NT 4.0

 Japanese

System Requirements | Installation Instructions | Troubleshooting

System Requirements

The JavaTM 2 SDK is intended for use on Windows 95, Windows 98 (1st or 2nd edition), Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 5, Windows ME, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows 2000 Server, or Windows 2000 Advanced Server operating systems running on Intel hardware. In non-English locales, only the Professional edition of Windows 2000 is supported.

A Pentium 166MHz or faster processor with at least 32 megabytes of physical RAM is required to run graphically based applications. Forty-eight megabytes of RAM is recommended for applets running within a browser using the Java Plug-in product. Running with less memory may cause disk swapping which has a severe effect on performance. Very large programs may require more RAM for adequate performance.

You should have 70 megabytes of free disk space before attempting to install the Java 2 SDK software. If you also want to install the documentation download bundle, you will need an additional 120 megabytes of free disk space.

Installation Instructions

In this procedure, you will run the self-installing executable to unpack and install the Java 2 SDK software bundle.

Note: After the Java 2 SDK software has been installed, you will be asked to reboot your system, which completes the registry modifications that you will need if you ever want to deinstall this product later. To continue using these instructions after rebooting, either print them now or use your Web browser's history function to get back to this page.

The installation procedure has the following steps:

  1. Check the download file size
  2. Run the Java 2 SDK installer
  3. Delete the downloaded file(s) (Optional)
  4. Update the PATH variable
  5. Check the CLASSPATH variable
  6. Start using the SDK tools!
  7. Uninstalling the Java 2 SDK

If you have any difficulties, see the Troubleshooting section at the end of this document or use this link to report an installation problem.

Note: For any lines on this page containing the following notation, you must substitute the appropriate update version number for the notation. 
       <version number>
For example, if you are downloading the installer for update 1.3.1_01, the following file name: 
      j2sdk-1_3_1_<version number>-win.exe
would become: 
      j2sdk-1_3_1_01-win.exe
1. Check the download file size
Before you download a file, notice that its byte size is provided on the download page. Once the download has completed, check that you have downloaded the full, uncorrupted software file.
2. Run the Java 2 SDK installer
The file j2sdk-1_3_1_<version number>-win.exe is the Java 2 SDK installer. If you downloaded it instead of running it directly from the web site, double-click on the installer's icon. Then follow the instructions the installer provides. When done with the installation, you can delete the download file to recover disk space.

Installed Directory Tree
The Java 2 SDK has the directory structure shown below. 

                   jdk1.3.1_<version number>
  ____________________|___________________
 |    |    |    |    |   |  |    |    |   |
 |    |    |    |   bin lib |    |  demo  |
 |    |    | LICENSE |   |  |    |       jre
 |    | COPYRIGHT           |    |      __|__
 |  README                  | include  |     |
README.html           include-old     bin   lib
3. Delete the downloaded file(s) (Optional)
If you want to recover disk space, delete the file (or files) you originally downloaded.
4. Update the PATH variable
You can run the Java 2 SDK without setting the PATH variable, or you can optionally set it as a convenience.

Should I set the PATH variable?
Set the PATH variable if you want to be able to conveniently run the Java 2 SDK executables (javac.exe, java.exe, javadoc.exe, etc.) from any directory without having to type the full path of the command. If you don't set the PATH variable, you need to specify the full path to the executable every time you run it, such as: 

    C:> \jdk1.3.1_<version number>\bin\javac MyClass.java
It's useful to set the PATH permanently so it will persist after rebooting.

How do I set the PATH permanently?
To set the PATH permanently, add the full path of the jdk1.3.1_<version number>\bin directory to the PATH variable. Typically this full path looks something like C:\jdk1.3.1_<version number>\bin. Set the PATH as follows, according to whether you are on Windows NT or Windows 95/98/2000/ME.

Windows NT and Windows 2000 - To set the PATH permanently:

  1. Choose Settings, Control Panel, and select System. On Windows NT, select the Environment tab; on Windows 2000 select the Advanced tab. Look for "Path" in the User Variables and System Variables. If you're not sure where to add the path, add it to the right end of the "Path" in the User Variables. A typical value for PATH is: 
         C:\jdk1.3.1_<version number>\bin
    Capitalization doesn't matter. Click "Set", "OK" or "Apply".

    The PATH can be a series of directories separated by semi-colons (;). Microsoft Windows looks for programs in the PATH directories in order, from left to right. You should only have one bin directory for a Java SDK in the path at a time (tho