title: Home directory for bundled version of JDK in IntelliJ IDEA
body: <p>I have JDK 7 installed on my machine, but I want to compile against JDK 8 using IntelliJ IDEA.</p>
  
  <p>In the window that opens when choosing <code>Help &gt; About</code>, there is the following line:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>JRE: 1.8.0_51-b16 x86</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Well, IDE is running on Java 8. In fact, <a href="https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/articles/206827547-Selecting-the-JDK-version-the-IDE-will-run-under" rel="noreferrer">here</a> it states:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>JDK is bundled with all the product installers and it's recommended that you will use the provided JDK version unless there are any specific issues.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>That's great! I should be able to use the bundled version with my projects too.
  But where is that JDK located?</p>
  
  <p>When selecting the home directory for a new project, the default path is <code>C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 15.0.1\jre</code>, but it doesn't work.</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The selected directory is not a valid home for JDK</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>After exploring a bit, I found <code>C:\Program Files (x86)\JetBrains\IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition 15.0.1\jre\jre\bin</code>. It contains many files, even some called <code>java.exe</code> and <code>javaw.exe</code>, but it doesn't work.</p>
  
  <p>So where is the home directory for the bundled version of the JDK installed with IDEA?</p>