Question

As we all know, a lot of things need to be installed before being able to create Android apps using Eclipse.

I ended up with the various pieces in the places noted below; if I “had it all to do over again,” I would not necessarily place them in th same spots. Is there a “preferred method” for where these various tools should be installed?

Eclipse = C:\Users\Clay\Downloads\eclipse\eclipse
ADT = C:\Users\Clay\Downloads\eclipse\eclipse\plugins
JDK = C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_01
JRE = C:\Program Files\Java\jre7
ADK = C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk

…Why I have both a “Program Files” and a “Program Files (x86)” folder I don’t know, but I’m wondering if this mixing and matching might be problematic.

Answer 1

Well the folder structure that you are using is fairly good. This is how I put things around. It try to put development tools/sdks at the root directory as compared to program files. Exception to this is Java which when installed actually installs itself in Program Files.

Say my root is C: and i use tools-install as the base folder, this how the directory structure looks

Eclipse = C:\tools-install\eclipse
ADT = <installed by eclipse so goes in Eclipse dir>
JDK/JRE = C:\Program Files\Java
(One thing to note though
 I set windows `JAVA_HOME` to `c:\Progra~1\Java\jdk1.7.0_01`
 to avoid the `space` in the path)
ADK = C:\tools-install\android-sdk

And the reason you have x86 folder is that you are running 64-bit version of windows.
NOTE: The reason for keeping Java in Program files is that it is easy to update when new version of java arives. I just need to update the JAVA_HOME and not move around files (as I have seen people copying Java folder to the root to avoid space in path issue).