Netbeans 6.8 Install Problems?

Installing the Netbeans program on our Windows machines required a couple of steps as the installer complained over-and-over about the absence of a compatible Java runtime.

Java SE Development Kit (JDK) was not found on this computer
JDK 6 or JDK 5 is required for installing the Netbeans IDE. Make sure that the JDK is properly installed and run installer again. You can specify valid JDK location using -javahome installer argument.

This is a known issue and filed as a bug under Netbeans' tracker but there is a solution.


The workaround is to manually extract the exe and execute the bundle.jar installer.
From the commnand prompt execute the following two commands:

netbeans-6.5.1-windows.exe –-extract

java -jar bundle.jar

The first one extracts the installer from the exe while the other executes the installer.