Guide
Reading Java Stack Traces Well Enough To Fix The Problem
Most Java stack traces get read from the bottom up, badly. Someone pastes eighty lines into Slack, a colleague skims for the first Exception, guesses, and…
October 2026
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java -version
Get your Windows dev setup working.
Practical write-ups on installing and repairing JDKs, IDEs and build tools on Windows, picking between free developer utilities, and tracking down the environment and driver problems that quietly break a local setup.
Written for people who want their machine working
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JAVA_HOME
Latest write-ups
Step-by-step fixes, checked on a real Windows machine before they go up.
Guide
Cleaning Up A Windows PATH That Has Collected Too Much Junk
My PATH variable hit 1,847 characters last month. That is past the 2,047-character limit Windows has traditionally applied to environment variables set through the legacy UI,…
Guide
Why Your JDK Install Works In One Terminal And Not The Other
You installed a JDK. You opened a terminal, typed java -version, and got a clean reply. Then you opened a second terminal, or an IDE, or…
Guide
How To Run Two Java Versions On One Windows Machine
Every Java dev hits this eventually. You’re maintaining a Spring Boot service pinned to Java 17 because that’s what the client’s stack runs, and you also…
Guide
Free Developer Utilities That Earn A Place On A Windows Setup
My dev machine has about a dozen free tools installed that I actually open every week, and another twenty I uninstalled within a day. The difference…
Guide
Fixing A Build Tool That Cannot Find Your Compiler
The build fails with something like cl.exe not found or CMAKE_C_COMPILER not set, and your first instinct is that the compiler is gone. It usually isn’t.…
Guide
Setting JAVA_HOME On Windows Without Breaking Your Build Tools
Most JAVA_HOME guides tell you to open System Properties, click Environment Variables, and type a path. That part is easy. The part that bites you is…
Guide
Driver And Permission Problems That Quietly Break A Local Dev Setup
You change one line in a build script, hit run, and get a wall of red. The error says “access denied” or “file in use” or…
Guide
What To Check First When Your IDE Will Not Start After An Update
Your IDE updates itself overnight, you sit down with coffee, double-click the shortcut, and nothing happens. No splash screen. No error dialog. Just a cursor blink…
About the site
About Java E-Training
A plain guide site about developer software on Windows. No course sales, no sponsored placements.
Fixes, not lectures
Each piece starts from the symptom you actually see — the wrong version answering java -version, a build tool that cannot find the compiler, an IDE that will not open after an update — and works back to the cause.
Windows first
Paths, environment variables, permissions and drivers behave differently here than in the tutorials written for other systems, so everything is described the way it looks on a Windows box, including what to check in Path when two toolchains collide.