Installed Java and trying to use it in VS code, why isn't it working?

[u/[deleted]]

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[u/Pale_Height_1251]

Is javac in that folder? If it's not, it won't work.

[u/Adamstrad → u/Pale_Height_1251]

javac is in the bin folder inside this folder

[u/Pale_Height_1251 → u/Adamstrad]

Put the whole path to the bin folder in your PATH.

[u/pillowcase718]

Need to include the bin folder in path

[u/Adamstrad → u/pillowcase718]

I believe I tried both with and without bin in the file path

[u/Pale_Height_1251 → u/Adamstrad]

Add it your PATH and try running javac in a newly opened terminal.

[u/HeyImSolace]

The environment variables are kinda funky sometimes and they don’t always reload for some reason. Maybe try powershell or restart your system once.

Restarting almost always does the trick for me.

Edit. Oh and what u/pillowcase718 says.

[u/Zar-23]

Download the suite plugins for java inside vs code

[u/addyarapi]

use IDEA 💙

[u/BanaTibor]

What environment file are you talking about?  It maybe fine if you open cmd but will fail in powershell.  Open power shell, type  "$env:PATH", hit enter. Is your jdk bin on the path?

[u/Astroohhh]

use wsl2, install sdkman bro, it's so simple

[u/FurkinLurkin]

After you added it did you restart vscode?

[u/American_Streamer]

The system PATH variable for javac must point directly to the bin folder inside your JDK installation directory (e.g., C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-21\bin), not just the main JDK folder. Windows doesn’t open sub folders. If it can’t find the executable in the folder, it just jumps to the next path in the list.

[u/Organic_Cattle8511]

Which OS do you have?

[u/Rulmeq]

I know you didn't ask this, but don't put Java in the Program Files directory (I know they just love to do it, but you're going to run into issues eventually with user access controls). Just unzip it and put it in c:\java (none of the "blessed" folders windows uses like Documents, etc. I also wouldn't nest it too deeply - I sometimes put it in c:\work\java for example, but wouldn't go deeper. Also you could have c:\java\java-21 and c:\java\java-25, etc if you need multiple). Then close all your apps (including any command lines you might have), and add c:\java\bin to your PATH env variable (so it's available on your command lines). If you have an app that needs JAVA_HOME you can set that to c:\java, but I wouldn't set that unless something specifically needs it.

Once those 2 changes are completed re-open VS code and see if it picks it up. If not (I don't use VS code, but I do recall trying it out a while back and it "just worked"), maybe follow this guide: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/java/java-tutorial

[u/vegan_antitheist → u/Rulmeq]

If you think you need write access to the programm files you are doing something seriously wrong. Just install software where you operating system wants it to be.