A lot of software (I have these issues with Minecraft) doesn't like Java 7. I don't know if it's because of Java 7 or the fact that it's still pretty new, so software developers haven't caught up with it yet. Like when Windows Vista (yes, I used it for a very brief window of time) and there was no drivers for anything, or atleast it seemed so to me
Good thing you got it working though! Also be sure to install the correct version of Java for your OS, there's both 32 and 64bit versions. 32bit works on 64bit systems but you'd be missing out, at least a little.