Ant + Vista 64 : "Unable to locate tools.jar" (jre/jdk conflict?)
ant, java, windows-vista
Solution
I had this problem on a 64-bit Windows 7 machine and Ant 1.8.2. The solution was to use the admin tools mentioned by #bigfix to set the environment variables. Follow the Ant installation instructions for Windows. But do not set the path as %ANT_HOME%\bin. Instead, use an explicit path such as C:\jdk-1.5.0.05\bin.
My first test failed because my command window was already open and using the old env vars. Close it and open a new one. Then try the test. It worked for me.
Problem
I'm trying to use ant in a vista 64 environment to build some docbook/xml files. However, I can't resolve this error message. Anybody have suggestions? C:\Users\Robert Admin>ant Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\li b\tools.jar Buildfile: build.xml does not exist! Build failed Googling around, I see that this tools.jar message is the result of ant not being able to find the jdk. In fact, C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\li b\tools.jar is a JRE installed with another program (I'm guessing). Tools.jar is located here: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_22\lib I can't seem to tell Ant to look in the JDK path, only the JRE path which was already there. (Judging from the Ant documentation, it seems that JRE is insufficient). ``` C:\Users\Robert Admin>echo %JAVA_HOME% C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_22\bin C:\Users\Robert Admin>ant Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\li b\tools.jar Buildfile: build.xml does not exist! Build failed C:\Users\Robert Admin>echo %ANT_HOME% I:\My Documents\1latest\ant C:\Users\Robert Admin>where java C:\Windows\System32\java.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_22\bin\java.exe C:\Users\Robert Admin>java -version java version "1.6.0_22" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_22-b04) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.1-b03, mixed mode) ``` Update #1. I tried uninstalling the 64 bit jdk and installing the 32 bit jdk. Result: ``` C:\Users\Robert Admin>java -version java version "1.6.0_22" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_22-b04) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 17.1-b03, mixed mode) C:\Users\Robert Admin>ant Unable to locate tools.jar. Expected to find it in C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\li b\tools.jar Buildfile: build.xml does not exist! Build failed C:\Users\Robert Admin>echo %JAVA_HOME% C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_22\bin ```