diff --git a/app/build.xml b/app/build.xml
index b8d68408f..f7d89d0c4 100644
--- a/app/build.xml
+++ b/app/build.xml
@@ -72,30 +72,23 @@
 	 To avoid this, we grab the actual JAVA_HOME environment variable 
 	 and use that to specify the location of tools.jar. -->
     <!-- if someone is better with ant please help clean this up -->
-
     <property environment="env" />
     <property name="java_home" value="${env.JAVA_HOME}" />
+    <available file="${env.JAVA_HOME}/lib/tools.jar"
+	       property="java_tools_found" />
 
     <condition property="linux">
       <os family="unix" />
     </condition>
-    <fail if="linux" unless="java_home" 
+    <fail if="linux" unless="java_tools_found" 
 	  message="The JAVA_HOME variable must be set to the location of a full JDK. For instance, on Ubuntu Linux, this might be /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun." />
 
-    <echo message="here! ${java.home} and ${linux}" />
-
     <condition property="windows">
       <os family="windows" />
     </condition>
-    <fail if="windows" unless="java_home" 
-	  message="The JAVA_HOME variable must be set to the location of a full JDK. For instance, on Windows, this might be c:\jdk1.6.0_18." />
+    <fail if="windows" unless="java_tools_found" 
+	  message="The JAVA_HOME variable must be set to the location of a full JDK. For instance, on Windows, this might be c:\jdk1.6.0_19." />
 
-    <!--
-	<dirname property="blah" file="${java.home}" />
-	<echo message="here! ${java.home}/lib/tools.jar or there: ${blah}" />
-	<echo message="override ${env.JAVA_HOME}/lib/tools.jar" />
-	<fail />
-	-->
     <javac target="1.5" 
 	   destdir="bin" 
 	   excludes="**/tools/format/**"