Installing Java
If you already have some version of Java installed on your computer it will almost certainly be sufficient for these notes. You don't need the latest version. To run the current version of Java you need a computer that is running:
- Windows 98© or higher,
- Windows NT© or higher,
- most versions of Unix (including Linux),
- or a recent Apple.
If you have Windows 95 you will need to install an older version of Java. Java 1.3 will work. These Notes were prepared using Windows NT 4.0 with Java 1.3, but the screen shots are typical of all Windows operating systems. If you are running some other operating system there will be small differences in how you create and run programs, but absolutely no difference in the Java language itself.
The JavaTM 2 Software Development Kit (SDK)
is a collection of software
available at no charge
from Sun Microsystems, Inc.
At the time of writing (July 16, 2003) the download is available at
java.sun.com.
Detailed instructions on how to download it and install it are
available at that site.
If you have not yet installed Java,
get the most recent version.
The SDK for Windows comes in a file named
j2sdk-1_4_2-windows-i586.exe
Once you have this file install it by clicking on it. This starts an installer program. Then mostly all you do is keep clicking the buttons that accept the default options.
If the installation worked you should now have a new subdirectory
on your C: drive named j2sdk1.4.2 (or similar).
(The directory jdk1.3.1 in this picture is left over from a previous installation.)
