Making Android SDK Installer work with Windows 7/8 64bit and JDK x64

So it happened that I had to install a fresh copy of the Android SDK for windows when I discovered that even though I had the Java Development Kit (JDK) x64 installed, it was not recognized by the windows installer. So after trying to set a new environment variable called JAVA_HOME so that I can force the installer to see my installation of JDK, it failed and I had to result to one thing that every sane techie does, consult Google. As usual, there were lots of trial and errors until someone figure a “hacky” way of doing it.

Instructions:

1) Ensure that you have downloaded and installed JDK x64 which should come with either Java SE 6.5 or Java SE 7.

2) Open windows advanced settings by pressing “Win + R” and typing “sysdm.cpl“. When the windows appears, click on the “Advanced” tab and click on “Environment Variables” button. Now click new under “System Variables” and enter:

Variable Name: JAVA_HOME

Variable Value: <The Path to your JDK root> e.g. “C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_35″

Note the way I changed the backslashes to forward slashes (i.e from C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_35 to C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_35) .

3) Now run the Android SDK windows installer and voila, it works again.

Hope you found this useful? Try it and give me your feedbacks regarding this in the comments because I have seen a lot of hits on this subject matter especially those using Windows 7/8 x64.