How to install OpenJDK 11 on Windows?

AdoptOpenJDK is a new website hosted by the java community. You can find .msi installers for OpenJDK 8 through 16 there, which will perform all the things listed in the question (Unpacking, registry keys, PATH variable updating (and JAVA_HOME), uninstaller...).

As of writing, AdoptOpenJDK still hosts the latest versions of OpenJDK, but in the future, it is planned for new releases to be available at Eclipse Adoptium.

1. Extract the zip file into a folder, e.g. C:\Program Files\Java\ and it will create a jdk-11 folder (where the bin folder is a direct sub-folder). You may need Administrator privileges to extract the zip file to this location.

2. Set a PATH:

   • Select Control Panel and then System.
   • Click Advanced and then Environment Variables.
   • Add the location of the bin folder of the JDK installation to the PATH variable in System Variables.
   • The following is a typical value for the PATH variable: C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-11\bin"

3. Set JAVA_HOME:

   • Under System Variables, click New.
   • Enter the variable name as JAVA_HOME.
   • Enter the variable value as the installation path of the JDK (without the bin sub-folder).
   • Click OK.
   • Click Apply Changes.
4. Configure the JDK in your IDE (e.g. IntelliJ or Eclipse).

You are set.

To see if it worked, open up the Command Prompt and type java -version and see if it prints your newly installed JDK.

If you want to uninstall - just undo the above steps.

Note: You can also point JAVA_HOME to the folder of your JDK installations and then set the PATH variable to %JAVA_HOME%\bin. So when you want to change the JDK you change only the JAVA_HOME variable and leave PATH as it is.