Changing SQL Developer Java Home

Version: SQL Developer 4 [Windows 32/64-bit without JDK]

When you launch SQL Developer for the first time, it will ask you for JDK location, but once you point it to a JDK location it will not ask you for it again, even if you happen to specify an unsupported version.

“C:\Users\admin\Downloads\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\bin\sqldeveloper.conf” is misleading, it’s not the file which sets the Java Home variable. The actually file used is”%AppData%\sqldeveloper\{PRODUCT_VERSION}\product.conf” [in my case it is "%AppData%\sqldeveloper\1.0.0.0.0\product.conf"] As you can see in the above screenshot, I pointed it to JDK 6 update 45, which is an unsupported version. According to the error message it suggests that the supported versions are JDK 7 and JDK 8 and which can be now changed by editing the sqldeveloper.conf file located in “C:\Users\admin\Downloads\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\bin” directory and setting the SetJavaHome variable, which is very misleading. When I open the sqldeveloper.conf file the “SetJavaHome” variable was set to “../../jdk” which is not the location where I had installed JDK 6. I tried changing it to point to JDK 7 without any luck. It was still using JDK 6. Upon little investigation I found that the actual configuration file used is located in “%AppData%\sqldeveloper\1.0.0.0.0″ and named “product.conf”. When I opened this file I saw “SetJavaHome” variable pointing to JDK 6. Once I changed it to point to JDK 7, I was able to launch SQL Developer without and error message. Alternatively you can delete this “product.conf” file, so next time when you start SQL Developer it will prompt you for JDK location and this time you can point it to the correct JDK version.