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I installed Windows 10 (64bit). Since then, Isabelle HOL is no longer starting, even after a re-installation (which ran through smoothly). The error message is the following: "Startup Error: Error starting Java VM". This happens with the two versions I tested (2013-2 and 2015). The jvm.dll which is specified in the configuration file, exists in the right folder. Additionally, I have installed Java SDK in newest version (8.51) in both, 32bit and 64bit. Is there a known compatibility problem with Windows 10? Isabelle used to work with Windows 7 and 8. Thank you for you help.

user3318587
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  • Isabelle comes with its own Java installation, so the system version is not used. Please report this on the isabelle-users mailing list. – Lars Noschinski Aug 19 '15 at 08:48

1 Answers1

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Update (150822)

From the developer's mailing list, there's a link to a test release:

That's working different from Isabelle2015, in how it does some things with paths, so it might find the things it needs for Windows 10, or it may not. However, even if it works, there may be some incompatibilities with Isabelle2015 (in theorem proving).

Regardless, Isabelle only gets released 1 to 2 times a year, and I wouldn't expect anything special to be released for Windows 10 within 4 to 6 months. The links above, though, show that M.Wenzel can package together a test release, but he mainly operates on the user's mailing list.

In my batch file below, I set HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH, which you don't need if you want .isabelle to be in C:\user.

In this test release, those settings don't affect my home path. It also appears that USER_HOME is used, though my setting of USER_HOME doesn't make my batch file work for this test release.

Anyway, this test release has changed the way it works to discover things, and accomodates Windows even more, as shown by the new behaviour of the function File.platform_path.

It's working different enough, and requires enough changes, that I should stay with Isabelle2015, or I'll be out of sync with the official release.)

Original

(Zeroeth: Problems like this generally get hashed out on the mailing list, but I go ahead show you how I start Isabelle using a batch file, which I started doing before I had to start doing it.)

First, the Java that Isabelle uses is in this folder:

Isabelle2015\contrib\jdk\x86-cygwin\jre

Doing a normal Java install for Windows is not going to change which Java that Isabelle uses.

Below, I give you a batch file and bash file to start Isabelle/jEdit, which is an alternative to using Isabelle2015\Isabelle2015.exe.

For myself, what I've done is manually replace the 32-bit jre folder shown above with the jre in jre-8u45-windows-x64.tar.gz. (I renamed the old 32-bit folder. The most recent Java tar files can be found at the download page.)

Consequently, if I try to start up Isabelle with Isabelle2015.exe, I also get a popup that says, "Startup Error, Error starting Java VM", but starting Isabelle with the batch/bash combination works for me on Windows 8.1.

What I show you below may not fix your problem, but I guess Isabelle2015.exe has to get some info from the OS to work right, and maybe that's changed with Windows 10:

https://lists.cam.ac.uk/mailman/htdig/cl-isabelle-users/2014-December/msg00033.html

You put the batch and bash file below in the folder that you have or want your .isabelle folder. Change ISAHOME below to where your Isabelle distribution is. PATH needs the Cygwin bin in the path, and the path for isabelle, which I set in the batch file.

FILE: start-isabelle.bat

:: Isabelle2015.exe uses these directly. Setting HOME or USER_HOME doesn't work
set HOMEDRIVE=%~d0
set HOMEPATH=%~p0

:: Cygwin uses HOME, and this is how HOME is set in Cygwin-Terminal.bat
set HOME=%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%

:: ADD PATHS: 'cygwin/bin' to start terminal, 'Isabelle2015/bin' for 'isabelle'
set ISAHOME=E:\E_2\d ev\Isabelle2015
set PATH=%PATH%;%ISAHOME%/contrib/cygwin/bin;%ISAHOME%/bin;

set CHERE_INVOKING=true
::MINTTY CONSOLE
start /MIN mintty.exe -i /Cygwin-Terminal.ico "%~dp0start-isabelle.bash"

:: REGULAR WINDOWS CONSOLE
::bash --login -i "%~dp0start-isabelle.bash"

FILE: start-isabelle.bash

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
isabelle jedit -l HOL

With 64-bit Java, I can increase the size of the memory that Isabelle uses, by making this change in .isabelle\Isabelle2015\etc\settings:

JEDIT_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms1g -Xmx4g -Xss4m"
  or
JEDIT_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms1024m -Xmx4096m -Xss4m"

With 32-bit Java, when I do that, Isabelle will start but then terminate.