Month: May 2014

Unable to Set the Path To java.exe When Running Oracle SQL Developer Under Windows 7

Posted on by rchapin

I was trying to run Oracle SQL Developer for the first time on a new machine.  When firing it up, it presented me with a dialog box asking me to “Enter the full pathname for the java.exe file”.

OK, no problem.  So I find the path to the java.exe binary that was just installed with the SDK.  Hit submit . . . and nothing happens.  It blanks out the text field and the dialog box stares back at me.

I tried pointing it to the java.exe that was in the jre dir.  No joy.

After a lot of futzing around and doing some searches it turns out that there are a few things that you have to do to get it to run for the first time.

First, right-click on the Oracle SQL Developer short-cut and select “Run as Administrator”.

Then, in the dialog box, click Browse and navigate to the JDK that comes with the Oracle install.  For me it was in C:\Oracle11G\11.2.0.3\jdk\bin\java.exe

Once I did that it fired right up.  I then quit, and ran it as my user and it seemed to start up just fine.

Pin a “Show Desktop” Link to the Task Bar in Windows 7

Posted on by rchapin

To create a short cut and pin it to the task bar in Windows 7 do the following:

  1. Right-click on the Desktop and select New -> Shortcut.
  2. Enter the following in the field labeled “Type the location of the item:”  %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{3080F90D-D7AD-11D9-BD98-0000947B0257}
  3. Click “Next” and name the shortcut and then click “Finish”.
  4. Update the icon so that you will recognize it when you pin it to the task bar.  To do so, right-click on the shortcut and select “Change Icon”
  5. Paste the following in the “Look for icons in this file”  %SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll
  6. Select an appropriate icon and click “Apply” and then “OK”.
  7. Right-click on the icon and select “Pin to Taskbar”.
© 2005 Ryan Chapin