Should JAVA_HOME point to JDK or JRE?

Question

I pointed the JAVA_HOME to C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Java\\jre7. It works fine. Afterwards, I unzipped ant and set up the environment variables rela

Answer 1

If you're doing any sort of development, or building with Maven or Ant, you need to point to the JDK (Java Development Kit) where utilities such as javac (the Java Compiler) reside. Otherwise, you can point to the JRE (Java Runtime Environment).

The JDK contains everything the JRE has and more. If you're just executing Java programs, you can point to either the JRE or the JDK.