Configure J2 SDK1.3.1_20 on XP

[Neon Blue]

Compaq Armada E500 laptop 696Hz, 18GB, 320MB, WinXP

Have an older Sam's text, "Learn Java 2 in 21 Days" Covering SDK 1.3, published in 2000

Downloaded SDK 1.3.1_20 from Sun archives yesterday but apparently having trouble configuring it. It is the only development tool on the computer. There are, however, two JRE folders in the \Program Files.

The text suggests launching Notepad and opening AUTOEXEC.BAT to edit the PATH and CLASS variables. I cannot find the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. A reply from an inquiry to an XP forum suggests the functionality of AUTOEXEC.BAT now resides in the Registery; but the reply offered no suggestions of how to edit Registery variables.

Any help is welcome and appreciated

[Neon Blue]

OK, So I have learned to find the Environmental Variables in Properties of My Computer. What do I enter when I edit? You know, specific terms, syntax, etc. I am not experienced with Windows, but I am committed to learn Java and would like to use the text and version of Java I currently have before I go looking for later versions and text.
Thanks

[Vengeance45]

You would want to add the path to your Java /bin directory into your windows path.

Typically that is C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-1.3.1\bin. Add that to your PATH variable in the Windows Environment settings window. (Make sure you put a semi-colon in between paths)

Just a bit of a suggestion...

You really should look into using a more recent version of Java. Seeing that you are just learning, all the versions are roughly the same. Problem is that 1.3 is/will be shortly become unsupported by Sun. I would recommend Java 1.5 right now. All the functionality of 1.3.1 is available in 1.5 so you could probably even use the same book (although since the book is telling you to modify your autoexe.bat file, it is clearly a bit outdated as well).

[Neon Blue]

[quote=Vengeance45;6411]You would want to add the path to your Java /bin directory into your windows path.

Typically that is C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-1.3.1\bin. Add that to your PATH variable in the Windows Environment settings window. (Make sure you put a semi-colon in between paths)

Thanks, Closer reading of the text showed both practices, modifying the variables via text editor > autoexec.bat and to use Windows Environment settings as you suggest. I found out that the editing was done from the front of the PATH. It worked for both the Win 2000 laptop and the Win XP laptop and now SDK 1.3 is configured on both computers, but code only compiles on the Win 2000 computer. Maybe a newer version of SDK will compile on the XP computer.