Having Tomcat installation problems - here's a few problems/fixes (for newbie's only)

[Megan Ray <me...@prodigy.net>]

I had a couple of [very newbie] "bumps" when installing Tomcat.  Many thanks
to Warner Onstine and Craig McCalanhan for holding my hand and solving these
problems.   In return, I'm passing them on to any newbies - hopefully they
can avoid feeling as stupid is as I did when installing and running Tomcat.

If you have problems with Tomcat (i.e. run Startup.bat and see DOS window
start other window) you need to find out what the actual errors are.   To do
this:

1. In your OS (if Windows, run MS DOS-prompt) , go to the ...\tomcat\bin
directory
2. Type tomcat run

This will launch Tomcat & list any errors.   Unfortunately you can only
scroll up/back with Linux and Windows 2000.  In Windows 95/98 - can only
maximize screen.   This will help identify the specific error you have.

If you have the following error: Exception in thread "main"
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:  javax/xml/parsers/SAXParserFactory  -- You
need to download and install an XML parser and include it in your classpath.
Here is what I did:

1. Downloaded jaxp1.0.1 from sun
2. Unzip and installed under root  (in my case c:\)
3. Added the jaxp.jar and parser.jar to my classpath in the autoexec.bat
file   (i.e., set classpath=c:\jaxp1.0.1\jaxp.jar;c:\jaxp1.0.1\parser.jar)

If you have "Out of Environment" Error - do the following:

1. Right mouse click on the MS-DOS window icon
2. Select properties
3. Select the "memory" tab
4. Make sure the "initial environment" is > 3200

If you get Error 500 when you try to access a WAR file:

1.   Add the tools.jar file to classpath in the autoexec.bat file (i.e.
c:\jdk1.3\lib\tools.jar)

Hope these instructions help!   (Many thanks again to Warner and Craig!)