Setting up JAVA_HOME and PATH environment variables in Windows 7

I recently had to do some load testing stuff using the Apache Jmeter tool.Its a java based load testing tool.So for this i was required to install JDK on my Win7 box.Installing JDK was easy.But that was not all.
Since i am not much into programming in Java (am a .NET enthusiast fyi),so i was told by one of  my friends to set the environment variable to enable java to execute jar files for the load testing tool.Well it was not a tough job but took some time for me to figure it out.So here's a short and smart tutorial to get your box Java ready.

Step 1: Where's my JDK installation

The first step would be to locate your jdk's installation folder on your hard drive.Mine was C:\Java.This is an important step.You need to know the jdk installation folder location.This will be required later.

Step 2:  Setting up environment variable.Where do i begin?

To set up the environment variable,right click on the 'My Computer'(or 'Computer' icon/menu item in Win 7)

This would show up the following screen.

Notice the 'Advanced system settings' on left!! Click on it.
This would throw up a new mini-window with the 'System properties' options.

Now locate and click the button which says 'Environment Variables'.
This shows up the EV window where you have a couple of system related variables pre-defined.

Step 3: Setting up things

Now,our concern is to set up two new variables namely JAVA_HOME and PATH.We define the variables individually.Click on the 'New' button(Note there are two buttons with the text New.Click on the highlighted one in the image.)

This throws up a small-window with couple of textboxes. Here is where you specify the two attributes of your variable,the Variable Name and Variable value. In the Variable Name field you need to specify the name of the variable(JAVA_HOME or PATH in our case) and in the Variable value field,you need to specify the pathname.

For JAVA_HOME put in these parameter values.Note: The Variable value should contain the location of the JDK folder on your system.

For PATH put in these values.Note: The Variable value should contain the location of the bin folder of the JDK installation on your system.

Once done, you can see these environment variables in the listing. But we are not done yet.

Step 4: Some more changes

We just specified the environment variables.But the job is not over yet.We need to edit some 'System Variables' for the JAVA_HOME variable.To do so,highlight the JAVA_HOME variable by clicking on it.Once highlighted,you can see the various system variables related to our variable.

Now,we need to change the 'Path' variable(highlighted in the image above).Click on it and then click on 'Edit'.

This throws up the 'Edit System Variable' mini-window.Now add the highlighted portion in the image shown below at the end.(Don't forget to put in the semi-colon).

Once done,close everything and restart your system for the changes to come into effect.Once restarted,go to the command-line(cmd.exe) and type-in the following commands: java and javac 

You can see the version of Java installed on your system.This indicates that you have set the 'environment variables' successfully on your system.

I have an iso image

I recently downloaded the Visual studio 2010 express edition iso image from the microsoft's website.

I thought of mounting the image file (iso) with alcohol 120%.The setup file of alcohol 120% gave me errors on my Windows 7 pc(maybe because the alcohol setup was an old version).

This gave me an idea of extracting the iso files to my local disk and then run the setup.

All i needed was some tool to extract the files from iso. WinRaR is the best i thought.

This is what i did

Step 1: Selected the iso image and extracted it to a location(Used the 'Extract to' option in the right click menu.You can configure these options during the installation of WinRaR application)

Step 2: The extraction in process

Step 3: The extracted folder which includes the 'Setup' file of VS2010.

Step 4: The installation window on clicking 'Setup'

The installation thereafter was pretty smooth and fast.

Extracting from iso is a good option especially if you have a large hard disk space to keep your extracted files.

Local Group policy editor (Windows 7 (professional/ultimate)/Windows Server 2008/Windows Server 2012)

The Local Group Policy Editor is a powerful tool(unknown to most of the Windows OS users) which allows users to tweak almost every aspect of their PC.Using this tool a user can customize several aspects of his system such as setting password complexities,disabling/enabling features,running scripts at login/logoff and much more than one could imagine.

A Note of Caution

The Local Group Policy Editor is a powerful tool,putting a lock on nearly any of your computer's capabilities.As long as you are careful and don't go flipping virtual switches willy-nilly,you should be able to prevent doing catastrophic damage to your system.It is advisable to create a system restore point before trying out this feature.

How to access??

Go to start menu and run gpedit.msc

This should show you something like this

This is the LGP editor where you can see and change the various policies for your system

What next??

With thousands of settings available in the Group policy editor,it can be a little difficult to try and look around.For most of the OS tweaks the User Configuration has more useful settings than Computer Configuration.Also in the either section,the Administrative Templates subsection is the most useful.It contains all registry based settings which can be easily changed.

To explore different settings,double click on any of these folders and you will find thousands of settings which you would have never thought existed

Most of the settings are self explanatory and can be changed with few clicks.However,a final piece of advice HANDLE WITH CARE