Beginner Help!!! Paths & Applet Viewers

[ged]

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

[Dillinger4]

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.