Brussells Development Blog

Recently I ran into a unique problem that aggrevated me to no end.  I downloaded the latest Android SDK and installed following the exact instructions on Google’s SDK site.  I had all the pre-requisits installed and I was ready to launch the SDK Manager to begin grabbing my package components when I ran into the problem.  Everytime I tried to launch the SDK Manager all I got was a quick flash of a Windows command prompt, then nothing.  This occurred over and over, whether running from the shortcut link inside the Start Menu, or running directly from the command prompt.  Nothing …

After some internet searches, I quickly realised I found similar problems posted on various forums, yet no absolute fix was ever posted.  Long story short, I found the solution to my paticular problem so I shall outline it here for others out there that may run into the same problem.

Problem:
I actually had previous versions of Java JDE installed already on my machine that I forgot about from other development enviroments and IDEs.  Running a simple “java -version” command from the command prompt showed the active JDE was v1.3.  I had installed Java JDK v1.6 Update 23 and installed previously before installing the Android SDK so I knew something was wrong.

Solution:
You can have multiple PATH locations for your JDE \ JDK’s on your system, but what counts is what is first in the list that gets first pick.  So in order to make sure your latest JDK version that Android SDK is requiring is actually first in the system PATH list, follow these steps under Windows 7:

• Right-click on My Computer -> Properties
• Click Advanced Settings on the left side of the screen
• Look at the bottom list called “System variables” and find the entry labeled “Path”
• Select “Path” from the list and click the Edit button
• If you haven’t already added the path to your Java JDK’s bin folder, then do so now at the Beginning of the list
• Otherwise, locate your previous Java JDK bin folder you inserted earlier and make sure it is at the front of the list

Example:
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_23\bin;

Make sure you add the “;” semicolon to the end of the path when you insert it at the beginning of the string.  Click Ok button(s) all the way out of the dialogs and reboot your PC.  Upon rebooting, I ran the “java -version” command again from my command prompt and it correctly displayed my new install of Java JDK v1.6 Update 23.  Android SDK Manager launched too and works great.

I hope this helps you if you run into this problem.

Enjoy!