# Running ES without java\_home?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/running-es-without-java-home/63111>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [October 15, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/running-es-without-java-home/63111 "2016-10-15T15:06:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DSheffield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@DSheffield](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DSheffield)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/running-es-without-java-home/63111/1 "2016-10-15T15:06:44Z")

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Where we are deploying ES, it is required to have the JRE automatically update. But the users don't want to have to manually change java\_home every time it gets stale.

The deployment is on Windows.

Would it cause any problems if we simply edited the startup bat files to remove the java\_home check and change "%JAVA\_HOME%\bin\java" to simply "java" so it picks up the latest one?

What if we setup ES as a service?

Thanks

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/running-es-without-java-home/63111/2 "2016-10-15T20:24:13Z")

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It needs to be somewhere in your path, so even if you don't list it there it'll need to be in user variables.

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**Author:** ![DSheffield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@DSheffield](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/DSheffield)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 9:22pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/running-es-without-java-home/63111/3 "2016-10-15T21:22:14Z")

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java\_home needs to be on the path? Or just java.exe?

If the former what's the effect if it's not?

Thanks

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 10:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/running-es-without-java-home/63111/4 "2017-07-05T22:11:59Z")

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