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Message:

Finding main

Posted by Matt Gerrans on January 25, 2002 at 2:53 PM

> Whenever I try to use java.exe or javaw.exe with MS-DOS Prompt, I get a windows message from the Java Virtual Machine Launcher saying "Could not find the main class! Program will exit!". Originally I though because I had installed Borland's JBuilder and also the Java2 SDK from Sun's website that there was a conflict. So I uninstalled JBuilder. The message still came up, so I then uninstalled the SDK and JRE. I then re-installed the SDK. But the message is still persisting. It appears regardless of whether I switch to the directory that javaw.exe is in or not. Does anyone know the problem? I didn't restart the computer after the uninstall or the reinstall because I didn't think I needed to. Could that be the problem? Thanks for any help.
> Hiran

There are a few things that can cause this not-finding-main thing:

1. Your prototype for main is wrong: missing static, static or void, not having an args String array (I forgot the [] part one time and it took a while to find).
   
2. There is another class earlier in the classpath with the same name as the one you are trying to run, that doesn't have a main.
   
3. Your class, or the current directory, is not in the classpath.