Issue
I am trying to get Eclipse v3.5 (Galileo) to re-run on my computer - I have run it before with no problems, but now I keep getting this error:
A Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development kit (JDK) must be available in order to run Eclipse. No Java virtual machine was found after searching the following locations: C:\eclipse\jre\javaw.exe javaw.exe in your current PATH
I've just done a fresh install of both the JDK and the SDK.
I have Windows 7 (x64).
What's up with this? How do I fix it?
I can't run any of the ipconfig / tracert / or ping.
Solution
Eclipse will by default try to launch with the default "java.exe
" (the first one referenced by your PATH
)
Three things to remember:
- "Installing" a JRE or a JDK can be as simple as unzipping or copying it from another computer: there is no special installation steps, and you can have as many different JVM versions (1.4, 5.0, 6.0...) as you want, "installed" (copied) almost anywhere on your disk.
- I would recommend to always run Eclipse with the lastest JRE possible (to benefit from the latest hotspot evolutions).
You can:
- Reference that exact JRE path in your eclipse.ini.
- Copy any JRE of your in your <eclipse>/jre directory.
In both cases, no
PATH
to update.
- The JVM you will reference within your Eclipse session is not always the one used for launching Eclipse because:
- You only need a JRE to launch Eclipse, but once Eclipse launched, you should register a JDK for your projects (especially for Java sources and debugging purposes, also in theory for compilation but Eclipse has its own Java compiler) Note: You could register just a JRE within Eclipse because it is enough to run your program, but again a JDK will allow for more operations.
- Even though the default registered Java in Eclipse is the one used to launch the session, you can want to register an older SDK (including a non-Sun one) in order to run/debug your programs with a JRE similar to the one which will actually be used in production.
June 2012, jmbertucci comments:
I'm running Windows 7 64-bit and I had the 32-bit JRE installed. I downloaded Eclipse 64-bit which looks for a 64-bit JRE. Because I didn't have the 64-bit JRE it threw the error, which makes sense.
I went to the Java manual install page (which was not as directly accessible as you'd like) and installed the 64-bit version. See "Java Downloads for All Operating Systems". That was all I needed.
April 2016: Steve Mayne adds in the comments:
I had to edit the
eclipse.ini
file to reference the correct Java path - Eclipse doesn't use the environmentPATH
at all when there is a value ineclipse.ini
.
Answered By - VonC
Answer Checked By - Candace Johnson (JavaFixing Volunteer)