Newb setup question re: 500 cannot compile error

Question

HTTP Status 500 -
type Exception report
message
description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP
An error occurred at line: -1 in the jsp file: null
Generated servlet error:
[javac] Compiling 1 source file
This is on the default index.jsp page that installs with Apache Tomcat/4.1.18... at http://localhost:8080/index.jsp which maps to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Tomcat 4.1\webapps\ROOT\index.jsp
by now I have way too many java sdks installed...
C:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.1_01
C:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.0_03
C:\j2sdk1.4.0_03
C:\j2sdkee1.4
The first one I tried got me the same error I am getting now.. and since I have tried different versions changing JAVA_HOME
Right now..
JAVA_HOME = C:\j2sdkee1.4
CATALINA_HOME = C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Tomcat 4.1
I have no idea what's going on here not having much experience in settting up web servers or java SDKs. But in order to learn the stuff I have planned to I need teh following to get up and running on Win2K.. any help is greatly appreciated.
Java JDK 1.4.
Tomcat servlet\JSP engine 4.0.1.
MySQL database 3.23.46
If I stick a standard html page in the tomcat root it will show just fine.. so I suspect the whole Java thing is buggin for some reason.
Here's the full text of the returned error followed by the text of the index.jsp file
HTTP Status 500 -
type Exception report
message
description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP
An error occurred at line: -1 in the jsp file: null
Generated servlet error:
[javac] Compiling 1 source file
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.DefaultErrorHandler.javacError(DefaultErrorHandler.java:130)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.javacError(ErrorDispatcher.java:293)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.generateClass(Compiler.java:340)
     at org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:352)
     at org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.compile(JspCompilationContext.java:474)
     at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:184)
     at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:295)
     at org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:241)
     at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:853)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:247)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:193)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:260)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:643)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:480)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:995)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:191)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:643)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:480)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:995)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.invoke(StandardContext.java:2415)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:180)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:643)
     at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorDispatcherValve.invoke(ErrorDispatcherValve.java:170)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:641)
     at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:172)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:641)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:480)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:995)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:174)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline$StandardPipelineValveContext.invokeNext(StandardPipeline.java:643)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardPipeline.invoke(StandardPipeline.java:480)
     at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.invoke(ContainerBase.java:995)
     at org.apache.coyote.tomcat4.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:223)
     at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.process(Http11Processor.java:432)
     at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.processConnection(Http11Protocol.java:386)
     at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.TcpWorkerThread.runIt(PoolTcpEndpoint.java:534)
     at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.ThreadPool$ControlRunnable.run(ThreadPool.java:530)
     at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Apache Tomcat/4.1.18
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title><%= application.getServerInfo() %></title>
<style type="text/css">
<!--
body {
color: #000000;
background-color: #FFFFFF;
font-family: Arial, "Times New Roman", Times;
font-size: 16px;
A:link {
color: blue
A:visited {
color: blue
td {
color: #000000;
font-family: Arial, "Times New Roman", Times;
font-size: 16px;
.code {
color: #000000;
font-family: "Courier New", Courier;
font-size: 16px;
-->
</style>
</head>
<body>
<!-- Header -->
<table width="100%">
<tr>
<td align="left" width="130"><img src="tomcat.gif" height="92" width="130" border="0" alt="The Mighty Tomcat - MEOW!"></td>
<td align="left" valign="top">
<table>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><b><%= application.getServerInfo() %></b></td></tr>
</table>
</td>
<td align="right"><img src="jakarta-banner.gif" height="48" width="505" border="0" alt="The Jakarta Project"></td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table>
<tr>
<!-- Table of Contents -->
<td valign="top">
<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#D2A41C" bordercolor="#000000" align="left" nowrap>
<font face="Verdana" size="+1"><i>Administration</i>      </font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFDC75" bordercolor="#000000" nowrap>
Tomcat Administration<br>
Tomcat Manager<br>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#D2A41C" bordercolor="#000000" align="left" nowrap>
<font face="Verdana" size="+1"><i>Documentation</i>      </font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFDC75" bordercolor="#000000" nowrap>
Tomcat Documentation<br>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#D2A41C" bordercolor="#000000" align="left" nowrap>
<font face="Verdana" size="+1"><i>Tomcat Online</i>      </font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFDC75" bordercolor="#000000" nowrap>
Home Page<br>
Bug Database<br>
Users Mailing List<br>
Developers Mailing List<br>
IRC<br>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#D2A41C" bordercolor="#000000" align="left" nowrap>
<font face="Verdana" size="+1"><i>Examples</i>      </font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFDC75" bordercolor="#000000" nowrap>
JSP Examples<br>
Servlet Examples<br>
WebDAV capabilities<br>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<br>
<table width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" bordercolor="#000000">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#D2A41C" bordercolor="#000000" align="left" nowrap>
<font face="Verdana" size="+1"><i>Miscellaneous</i>      </font>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFDC75" bordercolor="#000000" nowrap>
Sun's Java Server Pages Site<br>
Sun's Servlet Site<br>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
<td>     </td>
<!-- Body -->
<td align="left" valign="top">
<p><center><b>If you're seeing this page via a web browser, it means you've setup Tomcat successfully. Congratulations!</b></center></p>
<p>As you may have guessed by now, this is the default Tomcat home page. It can be found on the local filesystem at:
<blockquote>
<p class="code">$CATALINA_HOME/webapps/ROOT/index.html</p>
</blockquote>
</p>
<p>where "$CATALINA_HOME" is the root of the Tomcat installation directory. If you're seeing this page, and you don't think you should be, then either you're either a user who has arrived at new installation of Tomcat, or you're an administrator who hasn't got his/her setup quite right. Providing the latter is the case, please refer to the Tomcat Documentation for more detailed setup and administration information than is found in the INSTALL file.</p>
<p><b>NOTE: For security reasons, using the administration webapp
is restricted to users with role "admin". The manager webapp
is restricted to users with role "manager".</b>
Users are defined in <code>$CATALINA_HOME/conf/tomcat-users.xml</code>.</p>
<p>Included with this release are a host of sample Servlets and JSPs (with associated source code), extensive documentation (including the Servlet 2.3 and JSP 1.2 API JavaDoc), and an introductory guide to developing web applications.</p>
<p>Tomcat mailing lists are available at the Jakarta project web site:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>[email protected]</b> for general questions related to configuring and using Tomcat</li>
<li><b>[email protected]</b> for developers working on Tomcat</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks for using Tomcat!</p>
<p align="right"><font size=-1><img src="tomcat-power.gif" width="77" height="80"></font><br>
<font size=-1>Copyright &copy; 1999-2002 Apache Software Foundation</font><br>
<font size=-1>All Rights Reserved</font> <br>
 </p>
<p align="right"> </p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>

Answer 1

I ended up uninstalling every java this and that.. and tomcat.
Then installing only the j2sdk1.4.0_03 SDK.
Then set up JAVA_HOME for all users and modified the path with full path to the bin (c:\j2sdk1.4.0_03\bin)
Lastly I reinstalled tomcat and, voila, everything was working.
It can be quite maddening when you THINK you did everything by the boook and something doesn't work. When you replied and confirmed that I was on the right track.. uninstalling and trying yet again became les frustrating an option.
Thanks.
BTW- I needed this env to do the projects in what sems to be a very interesting book.. "macromedia Flash MC application design and development" by Jessica Speigel .. published by New Riders.
Her flash help website is at www.were-here.com.. the projects in the book are for flash-based multiplayer games and multi-user formums and such.