There are three simple ways to set JAVA_HOME in Windows. This tutorial shows you how to do it manually, from the command line and through the installer.

Need to install the Eclipse IDE on Windows? This quick video tutorial shows you how to install Eclipse and build your very first Java application in the popular, open-source IDE.

A statement by an Oracle executive affirms that Java 7 and updates to it should continue to work on Windows XP. Java 8 is a different story.

For more on that, check out our guide to Android development for beginners. For the purposes of this Java tutorial, it may be easier to write your code directly into a Java compiler app.