The Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) Software Development Kit (SDK)
version 1.4.x, which includes classes needed to take advantage of J2EE
technologies like servlets and more.  If you're not going to develop
servlets, JSPs and other things that work in a servlet container or
application server, you may have no need.

This is the Java 2 Standard Edition (J2SE) but only the runtime
environment, aka JRE.  This is all you need to run Java applications
and/or applets requiring 1.4.x or lower.

This is the J2SE SDK, formerly known as JDK and still called that by
many.  It includes a JRE (above), but it also includes all the tools
needed to compile code, make jar files, etc.  If not developing, you
don't need it.

Before Swing, there was just Java and later the Swing add-ons.  As of
1.2 (if I'm remembering right), it became known as Java 2 and included
Swing.  You really should probably ignore anything earlier than 1.4.2.

I'm going to have to change your ordering to keep from repeating
myself.

Java Runtime Edition.  This is the Virtual machine you need to run
JAVA programs, and applets.

The 2 stands for Java2.  Which is goofy, because they really started
calling it that as of Java 1.2.  Java hasn't actually reached v2.0.0
yet.  The 1_4_x means it's version 1.4.x (see what I mean?)

The SDK is the Software Developer Kit.  It's the compiler you need to
convert your JAVA code into bytecode that you can run on the Virtual
Machine.  You need this or one of the other compilers if you want to
write your own JAVA programs.

It includes the JRE (Java Runtime) components, so you don't have to
download that again to test your programs or run others.

JDK stands for JAVA Development Kit.  It's the same as the SDK.
Someone at Sun thought this wording was clever at some time.  This
likely means the that file is an older version of the compiler.

The EE stands for the Enterprise Edition of the SDK.  This includes
additional methods and data structures that one might need for
developing E-business stuff (I haven't used it, but the methods
suggest it's a client/server API).  It includes everything that's in
the standard SDK/JDK + the J2EE API.  You don't actually need to use
it, it's just something to make your life easier (or more complicated)
when developing these sorts of programs.

---------------------------------------------
Thanks.

MCheu

See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jre.html
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jdk.hthl
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/j2ee.html

you should be looking at version 1.5.0_05