IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1(64) : Unsupported java version Cannot start under Java 1.7.0_79-b15: Java 1.8 or later is required

Question

Currently I set JAVA_HOME environment variable to 1.7

When I try to open the file idea64.exe (path : ..\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA 2016.1\bin\idea64.exe) below error is populated

Unsupported java version
Cannot start under Java 1.7.0_79-b15: Java 1.8 or later is required.

From the above error I understood that I have to set my JAVA_HOME to 1.8, but I don't want to set JAVA_HOME to 1.8.

I believe there should be a configuration file where in I can point to Java-8 and fix this, can anyone please let me know where can I do the configuration changes?

Answer 1

You should create IDEA_JDK_64 environment variable and set its value to JDK8 instance location on your computer.

This JDK8 instance can be used only for idea and JAVA_HOME can point to the Java 7 at the same time without any problems.

Via documentation:

idea64.exe uses this JDK search sequence:

• IDEA_JDK_64 environment variable
• ..\jre64 directory
• system Registry
• JDK_HOME environment variable
• JAVA_HOME environment variable

Answer 2

Creating the IDEA_JDK_64 environment variable pointing to the current JDK 8 installation didn't work for me on Windows 7.

What worked was starting IDEA from its script residing in:

<your location of>\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 2016.1.1\bin\idea.bat

On Windows, one can map a shortcut to that location and change its icon to:

<your location of>\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 2016.1.1\bin\idea.ico