I downloaded the portable version of netbeans netbeans-6.9.1-201007282301-ml.zip from the netbeans site and changed the config file in etc/netbeans.conf as indicated on the netbeans site. The file contents are below.

# ${HOME} will be replaced by JVM user.home system property
#netbeans_default_userdir="${HOME}/.netbeans/6.9"
netbeans_default_userdir=".netbeans/6.9"

# Options used by NetBeans launcher by default, can be overridden by explicit
# command line switches:
netbeans_default_options="-J-client -J-Xss2m -J-Xms32m -J-XX:PermSize=32m -J-XX:MaxPermSize=200m -J-Dapple.laf.useScreenMenuBar=true -J-Dapple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz=true -J-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true"
# Note that a default -Xmx is selected for you automatically.
# You can find this value in var/log/messages.log file in your userdir.
# The automatically selected value can be overridden by specifying -J-Xmx here
# or on the command line.

# If you specify the heap size (-Xmx) explicitely, you may also want to enable
# Concurrent Mark & Sweep garbage collector. In such case add the following
# options to the netbeans_default_options:
# -J-XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -J-XX:+CMSClassUnloadingEnabled -J-XX:+CMSPermGenSweepingEnabled
# (see http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/FaqGCPauses)

# Default location of JDK, can be overridden by using --jdkhome <dir>:
#netbeans_jdkhome="/path/to/jdk"
netbeans_jdkhome="C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_24\"

# Additional module clusters, using ${path.separator} (';' on Windows or ':' on Unix):
#netbeans_extraclusters="/absolute/path/to/cluster1:/absolute/path/to/cluster2"

# If you have some problems with detect of proxy settings, you may want to enable
# detect the proxy settings provided by JDK5 or higher.
# In such case add -J-Djava.net.useSystemProxies=true to the netbeans_default_options.

But it refuses to start when i try to run it. If i change the JDK path to something incorrect it complains that it can't find the jdk so i think the jdk path is correct. It also creates a .netbeans directory when i try to start it. I don't see any errors and it just doesn't do anything else observable.

Does anybody know how to set up this version of netbeans?

Thanks.