Eclipse on Mac 10.8 - Installed 1.7.0 JRE / JDK, but Eclipse won't launch

Question

• Installed Java SE 1.7.0u10 from Oracle w/ their installer package

• Downloaded and unpacked Eclipse Juno (4.2.1)

• Double click Eclipse

Answer 1

I had the exact same message when setting up a new mac and trying to run eclipse 4.2.2 with only Java SE 7 installed (as part of JDK 7u17).

In order to be able to successfully launch Eclipse I had to let OSX download and install Apple's Java SE 6 runtime first before installing the latest JDK.

After installing the JDK, the command java -version correctly shows:

java version "1.7.0_17"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_17-b02)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.7-b01, mixed mode)

Trying to solve the problem the other way around didn't work -- i.e. installing JDK 7u17 first before installing Java SE 6 as suggested in the message.