Step 1 - Start the Control Panel
Click the Windows Start button and then Control Panel in the box which appears.

Step 2 - Click on Performance and Maintenance


Step 3 - Click on System


Step 4- Click on the Advanced tab


Step 5- Click on Environment Variables


Step 6 - Create a new user environment variable
The dialog box below has an area in the top half for user defined environment variables. The bottom half is for maintaining and viewing the values of Windows system environment variables. Click on the upper New to define a new variable, namely the classpath.


Step 7 - Create classpath
In the Variable name field, enter the word classpath. This is the name of the new environment variable. In the Variable value field, enter .; (a dot and a semicolon). Do not press OK yet. The classpath is a list of file and directory locations separated by semicolons. The dot is the symbol for the current directory. If there is no classpath variable defined, Java will simply use the classes in the current directory and Java's own built in classes. If a classpath variable is defined, Java will not use the current directory unless it is included in the value of classpath. Therefore we start with a dot. In the next step we will add one of Wu's predefined packages.


Step 8 - Add another path to the value of classpath
One of the predefined packages from the Wu textbook is the javabook package. It is in the file javabookEd3.zip. Zip files can also be used in the classpath. Here is the hard part: You must know exactly its location on your PC. On my PC it is located at D:\Data\00-UMUC-Wu-Java\WuClasses\javabookEd3.zip . Your location will probably be different, but the end part must be javabookEd3.zip . Enter the full value of the location in the Variable value field after the dot semicolon. Be sure to use the same upper and lower case values that your file explorer shows. Do not click on OK yet. We need to add another value to the classpath.


Step 9 - Add one more path to the value of classpath
After javabookEd3.zip enter a semicolon and then the full directory location of the directory in which the galapagos directory is located. Do not include the name of the galapagos directory. On my PC, the galapagos directory is located in the directory D:\Data\00-UMUC-Wu-Java\WuClasses. Add this path to the end of the existing value for classpath. Do not forget the semicolon to separate this value from the previous. Do not include the galapagos directory.

Yours will be different if you put javabookEd3.zip and galapagos in different directories.


Step 10 - Exit the dialog boxes.
You can now see the (start of the) classpath variable in the upper display window. Click on OK until the last dialog box closes. If you later wish to change the classpath, follow the same procedure, but highlight the classpath line and then click on Edit.

You will most likely have to exit your Java editing environment, (DOS window, jGrasp, Textpad, or whatever) in order to make the new classpath available to Java.


Step 11 - Use the predefined classes in a Java application
You should now be able to use class from the javabook or galapagos packages in your Java applications. You must also include an import statement at the beginning of your source code. You only need the import statement for the package that your application needs. If you were going to use only classes from