Installing Tomcat 6 on Windows 7

Posted on September 18, 2010 by Paul Bouwer

Tomcat is an open source Java Servlet container developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It is bundled with a very capable Java based Web (HTTP) Server.

Which Java to install ?

Tomcat requires Java to be installed – it is afterall a Java Servlet container. Since Tomcat 5.5 the dependency on the JDK (Java Development Kit) for compilation of JSPs (Java Server Pages) has been removed. The Eclipse JDT Java compiler has been bundled with Tomcat to provide this capability. This means that we just need to install the JRE (Java Runtime Environment).

So its a simple decision then – or is it ?

Java Virtual Machines

From the Oracle Java SE Documentation:

The JDK^TM provides one or more implementations of the Java^TM virtual machine (VM):

On platforms typically used for client applications, the JDK comes with a VM implementation called the Java HotSpot^TM Client VM (client VM). The client VM is tuned for reducing start-up time and memory footprint. It can be invoked by using the -client command-line option when launching an application.

On all platforms, the JDK comes with an implementation of the Java virtual machine called the Java HotSpot Server VM (server VM). The server VM is designed for maximum program execution speed. It can be invoked by using the -server command-line option when launching an application.

The above documentation and information from other resources on the differences between the Client VM and Server VM suggest that we should be using the Server VM when running Tomcat on a server.

Unfortunately the Server VM is only bundled with the JDK. So we are back to our dependency on the JDK. If you are installing Tomcat on a server and require the optimisations around speed and for long lived processes install the JDK and use the Server VM.

Which Tomcat Binary Distribution ?

Just when you thought it was getting simpler … The Tomcat 6 Downloads page has 6 options for binary distributions.

Pick the 32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer option. This distribution is geared towards users planning to launch Tomcat through Windows services and also provides the compiled APR/native library.

Installing

Download and install the Java 6 SE JDK. Remember to install the 64-bit version if you are running on a 64-bit OS. The Tomcat installer will look for a 64-bit Java VM on a 64-bit OS.

Download and install the Tomcat 6.0.29 32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer.

Ensure that you select the Service and Native options under the Tomcat component. The Manager application component provides a web based management application.

Tomcat 3

You will be asked to choose an HTTP connector port for Tomcat and if you chose to install the Manager component you will also be required to configure authentication details for the Manager.

Tomcat 5

When asked to provide the path to the java virtual machine to use, specify the JRE folder of the installed JDK.

Tomcat 6

When the install is complete, the Tomcat service will be automatically started if you chose Run Apache Tomcat in the final screen on the install wizard.

Tomcat 9

Confirm the install

Once the service has started, the Tomcat icon should appear in the taskbar. Right click the icon and select Configure from the menu.

Tomcat 11

Select the Java tab on the Apache Tomcat 6 Properties window. Confirm that the Server VM (jre6\bin\server\jvm.dll) is being used by Tomcat.

Tomcat 12

Open the Windows Services manager and confirm that the Tomcat service has been correctly installed.

Tomcat 14

Finally confirm that you can communicate with Tomcat on the configured HTTP port. Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

Tomcat 15

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57 thoughts on “Installing Tomcat 6 on Windows 7”

Anis on October 22, 2010 at 8:27 pm said:

Hello,
How to install tomcat 6 on windows 7, I don’t found how to do it
Thanks

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on October 23, 2010 at 6:42 am said:
  
  Not sure what you mean ? Does the post not cover what you need to install tomcat 6 on windows 7 ?
  
  Reply ↓
Anis on October 23, 2010 at 6:51 am said:

Thank you for your reply,

I downloaded Tomcat 6.0.29, then I extracted it in a folder, after that I does not found an exe file that permit me to install it,
I double clicked on file catalina (under bin), also the file startup (under bin) but it does not work,
I haven’t an exe file that permit me to launch the installation

Thanks

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on October 23, 2010 at 7:06 am said:
  
  Make sure you download the “32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer” (apache-tomcat-6.0.29.exe) under the “Binary Distributions” section on the download page: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi. Sounds like you downloaded one of the zip files.
  
  Reply ↓
Anis on October 23, 2010 at 9:36 am said:

I forget to notice that in the run of windows 7, it shows a msgBox that says:
Unable to open service topmcat6
Have you any idea about this
Thanks

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on October 23, 2010 at 6:21 pm said:
  
  @Anis – have a look at my latest post – The case of the annoying Tomcat 6 Monitor. It should explain how to resolve your issue.
  
  http://blog.paulbouwer.com/2010/10/23/the-case-of-the-annoying-tomcat-6-monitor/
  
  Reply ↓
- Gaurav on July 13, 2011 at 9:22 am said:
  
  Run it as an administrator
  
  Reply ↓
sakura on January 7, 2011 at 3:35 am said:

thank you . your post was very useful

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rakesh on April 29, 2011 at 6:10 pm said:

Thanks a lot your post was very usefull….??

However i have a new problem when i click on “configure tomcat” in All programs to start/stop the server my screen resolution changes… same repeats even when i click on “monitor tomcat”.

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Ashish on May 14, 2011 at 2:34 pm said:

Thanks Paul Bouwer. This was very useful information.

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naresh on May 31, 2011 at 1:21 pm said:

when i clicked the config/monitor tomcat in Allprogrames it shows access is denied.
i am using tomcat6.0.32 and jdk6 in my windows7

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on May 31, 2011 at 1:29 pm said:
  
  Check out my post The case of the annoying Tomcat 6 Monitor.
  
  You need to ensure that you run the monitor as Administrator.
  
  Reply ↓
Pratheeba on June 17, 2011 at 4:24 pm said:

wow… thanks… really its useful for me….

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Mohammed Aleem on July 4, 2011 at 8:57 am said:

Hi,I installed the tomcat6 on windows 7 but am unable to connect to http://localhost:8080/
Thought i started the service , the Tomcat icon appears in the taskbar, can anybody suggest me..

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on July 5, 2011 at 7:10 am said:
  
  Check that the Apache Tomcat 6 service is running via the Windows Services Management Console.
  
  If the service is running and you still cannot connect then check that the configured port for tomcat is correct. Check in the %TOMCAT_INSTALL_FOLDER%/conf/server.xml file for the port value in the tag under .
  
  Reply ↓
Satyavrat on July 5, 2011 at 4:28 pm said:

Tomcat seems to work perfectly fine for me but connecting it to an Oracle Database is causing huge headaches!

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YG on July 10, 2011 at 10:21 pm said:

Thanks Mr.Paul

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B on July 18, 2011 at 1:46 pm said:

Hi….just incase this helps…..noticed that service name on my windows 7 install is tomcat6…not “Apache tomcat 6″ as shown in screen above.

Not sure if this is specific to my installation, but thought it worth mentioning in case anyone else is looking for the more verbose service name.

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- Paul Bouwer on July 19, 2011 at 7:06 am said:
  Generally the longer DisplayName property on the service is used in the service console. I’m not sure why you are seeing the shorter Name property …
```
PS C:\> Get-Service | where { $_.Name -match "tomcat"}

Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  Tomcat6            Apache Tomcat 6
Stopped  Tomcat7            Apache Tomcat 7
```
  Reply ↓
manolis on July 21, 2011 at 11:43 pm said:

Hello! I have a problem with the installation. I finish the above steps but when i go to http://localhost:8080 my browser only shows a blank page. :\

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on July 22, 2011 at 7:09 am said:
  
  As per the reply to Mohammed Aleem:
  
  Check that the Apache Tomcat 6 service is running via the Windows Services Management Console.
  
  If the service is running and you still cannot connect then check that the configured port for tomcat is correct. You can get the configured port in the %TOMCAT_INSTALL_FOLDER%/conf/server.xml file by checking the port attribute’s value in the Connector tag at the following XPath location – /Server/Service[@name="Catalina"]/Connector[@protocol="HTTP/1.1" ].
  
  Reply ↓
  - Boris Zárate on October 12, 2011 at 7:42 pm said:
    
    Paul,
    
    Thank you for all the information you have in here. It is definitively very useful. I have the same problem than manolis and Mohammed. Basically when I try to open http://localhost:8080 I get the webpage not found error, but the apache icon still shows up in the inferior right corner. I went to the file you said and I get this from there: “Connector port=”8080″ redirectPort=”8443″ connectionTimeout=”20000″ protocol=”HTTP/1.1″/”. So I am assuming the port 8080 is correct. I have installed tomcat 6.0.33 in a windows 7 professional machine. I have tried giving the tomcat executable administrator privileges (right click, compatibility), I have tried installing tomcat 7, I have tried restarting the machine multiple times, I have tried both installing jre 7 and jdk 7, I have tried starting tomcat from eclipse. Nothing seems to work. I feel that I am running out of ideas. Any suggestion ?
    
    Boris
- Paul Bouwer on October 13, 2011 at 7:21 am said:
  
  Are you using Internet Explorer when trying to get to the http://localhost:8080 URL ? If so, make sure you are using the http:// prefix – IE doesn’t seem to route correctly without it.
  
  Otherwise try Chrome and see if you have the same issue.
  
  Reply ↓
  - Boris Zárate on October 13, 2011 at 4:48 pm said:
    
    Paul,
    
    Thank you for your answer. I should have mentioned that I though about that and I included the prefix “http://” when trying to access the server from IE, additionally I went ahead and I installed Chrome. It is interesting that in IE I get the bad request error, but in Chrome I get a blank page that only says “fail”. Additionally, I should mention that I added the variable %JAVA_HOME% to the environment variables and to path, but not success yet. Any ideas ?. Thanks,
    
    Boris
Ben on July 23, 2011 at 2:00 am said:

Paul

Great blog. I am attempting to install Tomcat7 on a Win7pro machine. Installation went fine and the installer was able to start the service. As part of the installation for the specific webapp I am trialling however, I had to stop the service (which was done via the Tomcat monitor). I made some config changes using the monitor, specifically adding

-XX:PermSize=128m
-Xincgc

\ also the initial mermory pool and maximum mem pool to 512M

However when I restart the service using either windows service manager or Tomcat Monitor. The service simple enters a “Starting” state, never reaching the Started state. In this state it will not respond to stop commands or most other commands using sc.exe.

Any advice for debugging the installation.

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on July 25, 2011 at 7:25 am said:
  
  Ben
  
  Make sure that any Java options entered in the Tomcat Monitor’s Java Options text box do not have trailing whitespace – this has caught me out before.
  
  If that still doesn’t help your best bet is to look in the latest %TOMCAT_INSTALL_FOLDER%/logs/catalina.*.log file to determine why tomcat is not starting up.
  
  Reply ↓
  - gorakshnath on November 15, 2011 at 4:54 pm said:
    
    THanks so much Paul ….. its whitespace for me …
selvamuthukumaran on July 26, 2011 at 4:32 pm said:

This site is very useful and important

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Ravali on August 1, 2011 at 11:32 am said:

Thank you…has been very very useful

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M on August 24, 2011 at 5:41 pm said:

Thank you Paul. Your info pushed me out of the rut I have been for the past couple of hours. Maybe you can help the Apache/Tomcat group with clearer installation steps on their website

Have a great one!

Reply ↓
Nirav Patel on September 14, 2011 at 7:12 pm said:

Great thankx….loved your blog….

Reply ↓
Rodrigo on September 18, 2011 at 2:04 pm said:

Realy useful.
Thanx

Reply ↓
neeraj on October 5, 2011 at 6:12 pm said:

hi
I have install tomcat on my window 7 machine,when typing localhost:8080 on i.e its showing unsuccessful but with chrome its showing installed

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on October 13, 2011 at 7:17 am said:
  
  I seem to have the same issue with IE – you need to specify the http:// prefix otherwise IE does not seem to be able to route correctly to the site.
  
  Reply ↓
manohar on April 16, 2012 at 3:06 pm said:

i have 8080 alredy used for jetty server, i changed the port to 8585 but im getting 404 page

Reply ↓
- swethavithal on April 24, 2012 at 9:50 am said:
  
  hi manohar 404 error can b seen if u assign wrong url pattern at address bar of browser window. .Hope so So, one please confirm the and check 1s again c dat your servlet class matches with dat of your web resource prog’m and servlet name also both in servlet tag & servlet mapping.(check in web.xml) ex:http://localhost:8585/webappication_name/url-pattern if web server resides within your system
  
  Reply ↓
Lakshmi Reshma on April 28, 2012 at 1:48 pm said:

This is veryful.. Thanks a lot !!!

Reply ↓
Jon on May 15, 2012 at 8:17 am said:

Very useful guide… thanks a bunch!

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Tejaswi on June 5, 2012 at 12:22 pm said:

Hi……….. its too Good. I installed it apache in a good manner. Its very Useful. Thanks alot!!!

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Prynka on June 7, 2012 at 7:33 am said:

Thank you. Your post was very useful

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Mayur on June 20, 2012 at 6:50 pm said:

Thank You….Finally tomcat is installed pn my computer…Thank You very much…

Reply ↓
kviceral on June 20, 2012 at 11:44 pm said:

Reblogged this on Super Mekanismo and commented:
If you’re having trouble installing Tomcat. Here is a detailed step by step guide.

Reply ↓
ChuckInAtl on July 4, 2012 at 11:33 pm said:

Worked exactly the same way for Tomcat 7. Apache Tomcat sit does not make it clear that the installer needs to be downloaded too to make everything smooth.

Your post made it simple
Thanks,
ChuckInAtl

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shabi on August 19, 2012 at 5:57 am said:

After some initial steps i partially installed apache in my lap but i have one doubt in configure tab in apache property window the path should like this C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_01\bin\client\jvm.dll instead C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.6.0_01\bin\server\jvm.dll is this mean i had not installed my java properly?

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on August 19, 2012 at 6:13 am said:
  
  It means that the installer didn’t pick up the Server VM – ensure that you have the JDK installed not just the JRE. Read the beginning of the post.
  
  Reply ↓
vamsi on August 31, 2012 at 7:23 am said:

Thank You

You helped me sort out a problem which i am facing nearly 10 hours.
As a .net programmer i don’t know much about tomcat server,You guided me to install it in my pc.

Reply ↓
Shruti on September 3, 2012 at 6:57 pm said:

thanks a ton Paul!
you’re a saviour..
i finally fixed up an issue i’d been coveting to get rid off!
BIG thanks!!!!

Reply ↓
prashi on September 20, 2012 at 7:17 pm said:

hey … i downloaded tomcat 6..but i cudnt find startup file to run it in bin folder…
i downloaded “32-bit/64-bit Windows Service Installer” only…
plz help me out

Reply ↓
- Paul Bouwer on September 21, 2012 at 1:06 am said:
  
  The Windows Service Installer installs Tomcat as a Windows Service and does not provide startup files in the bin folder. It is geared towards interacting with Tomcat via the Windows Service mechanisms.
  
  Reply ↓
xyz on October 2, 2012 at 7:41 pm said:

thankz a lot..it was really helpfull

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Rajesh on November 24, 2012 at 11:35 am said:

Thanks

Reply ↓
Phani on November 27, 2012 at 1:41 pm said:

thank you so much . your post was very usefull

Reply ↓
Manju on December 27, 2012 at 5:18 am said:

Thank you so so much paul

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venkat on February 7, 2013 at 6:18 am said:

Thanks it s very useful to install and configure the tomcat server….

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Nick on February 12, 2013 at 4:51 am said:

One thing to keep in mind (that I ran into) is if you’ve already installed Oracle before this, it will hog up port 8080, which is the standard port that Tomcat uses. I tried editing the server.xml file, but it wouldn’t let me save it, even when I shut down Tomcat. So I just uninstalled and reinstalled using port 8181. Just some food for thought.

Reply ↓
Phil on March 6, 2013 at 4:30 am said:

Hi Paul… I wanted to thank you for this VERY helpful clear post.

Reply ↓
imanuel on March 20, 2013 at 3:21 pm said:

thank you very much……………..

Reply ↓

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Installing Tomcat 6 on Windows 7

Which Java to install ?

Java Virtual Machines

Which Tomcat Binary Distribution ?

Installing

Confirm the install

57 thoughts on “Installing Tomcat 6 on Windows 7”

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Which Java to install ?

Java Virtual Machines

Which Tomcat Binary Distribution ?

Installing

Confirm the install

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