How to install MAVEN on Windows

Maven is a software project management and comprehension tool. Based on the concept of a project object model (POM), Maven can manage a project's build, reporting and documentation from a central piece of information.

Maven addresses two aspects of building software: first, it describes how software is built, and second, it describes its dependencies. Contrary to preceding tools like Apache Ant, it uses conventions for the build procedure, and only exceptions need to be written down. An XML file describes the software project being built, its dependencies on other external modules and components, the build order, directories, and required plug-ins.

So, in other words, Maven will do the job managing your project, you just need to specify  the dependencies and it will help you building you project among other tasks, and no, it's not black magic, it's MAVEN, awesome, right?, and you know what is even better? ...it is FREE, so, Awesome X 2, =) (who doesn't like free stuff? I do)

Well, now I'm going to show you how to install Maven on your PC.

In order to install Apache Maven just download the Maven's zip file (here), and then unzip it to your local (I placed it in C:/) and proceed to configure the Windows environment variables:

Tools used:

• JDK 1.7
• Maven  

Install JDK, you can download it from here, 

Add JAVA_HOME to Windows environment variables. Right click on PC icon --> Advanced system settings --> Environment Variables

Now, download, unzip and place you Maven zip file in the folder you want (for example: C:/ )

Add M2_HOME and MAVEN_HOME environment variables:

Update PATH variable. We need to append Maven bin folder  %M2_HOME%\bin. This is going to help you run Maven's command everywhere:

Now, let's proceed to verify that we did everything fine. 

Verify Java, in command prompt type:  java -version

You should get something like this:

Now, let's verify Maven, in command prompt, type: mvn -version

If you get the next screen, you did the installation like a champ!

Now you have everything ready to start working in your Java projects using Maven and you can apply those ninja code moves you learned in YouTube. Enjoy!

Note: Just in case you didn't know, Maven 3.2 requires JDK 1.6 or above, while Maven version 3.0/3.1 requires JDK 1.5 or above.