Beginner Help!!! Paths & Applet Viewers

Having recently installed SDK 1.4 I am now attempting to define the path & classpath but being very new to java am unsure as to how to proceed. My current autoexe bat states the current path as:

PATH C:\BITWARE\

Having tried different paths i.e. more recently,

PATH C:\BITWARE\;C:\jdk1.4\bin;c:\jdk\classes;.

I still have to type the full path when promped in DOS:
i.e. To get to the 'JavaPrograms' directory I need to code:

C:|WINDOWS>cd c:\jdk1.4\JavaPrograms

I feel there should be benefits thru adding a path but feel it should be a lot shorter.

Additionally, I appear to have a problem viewing applets & have been advised that I might need an applet viewer downloaded separately.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Jake

If you set the CLASSPATH environment variable found within your autoexec.bat file and reboot your computer you should be able to compile without having to use the -classpath switch and specifying the directory where your .java class files are located. But you would still have to traverse DOS to the C:\jdk1.3\bin directory to run the compiler. You can fix this problem easily. At the C:\Windows prompt type set path=C:\jdk1.4\bin. This sould point DOS to the compiler and runtime so you should be able to compile and run your programs from any directory. ;)