Step 1: Download Latest Java, JDK 26 to your windows Direct link for windows - https://download.oracle.com/java/26/latest/jdk-26_windows-x64_bin.msi

Step 2: Download Latest Maven

Direct link for windows - https://dlcdn.apache.org/maven/maven-3/3.9.14/binaries/apache-maven-3.9.14-bin.zip

Step 3: Install JAVA on your system After installing the java, setup your windows environment variable JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-26\

Extract the maven and copy the folder so that you have MAVEN_HOME=C:\Program Files\Apache\Maven\apache-maven-3.9.14\

Ensure the bin folder exist in that folder

Step 4: Setup the path variables for JAVA and MVN Add these to your path variable on windows %JAVA_HOME%\bin %MAVEN_HOME%\bin

Step 5: Confirmation Once you got the steps above correct, you can do this on your terminal

c:> mvn --version Apache Maven 3.9.14 (996c630dbc656c76214ce58821dcc58be960875b) Maven home: C:\Program Files\Apache\Maven\apache-maven-3.9.14 Java version: 26, vendor: Oracle Corporation, runtime: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-26 Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8 OS name: "windows 11", version: "10.0", arch: "amd64", family: "windows"

C:> java --version java 26 2026-03-17 Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 26+35-2893) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 26+35-2893, mixed mode, sharing)

Step 6: Go to your intellij idea

Click next Pick those 3 options are you can hit off your project

Step 7: Right click and create a new Class called HelloController

Paste this inside the controller

package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.GetMapping; import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RestController;

@RestController public class HelloController { @GetMapping("/") public String hello() { return "Hello World from Spring Boot 🚀"; }

@GetMapping("/about")
public String about() {
    return "This is the about page";
}

}

Step 8: Run the project Hit the play button

step 9: View the result Head over to the browser and run http://localhost:8080 and also http://localhost:8080/about

At this stage, if you are successful you would have run your java springboot project successfully