Not able to start elastic search service
<p>I am trying to start the Elastic Search service on a Windows 2008 R2 server, but it's failing to start. It had previously been running for several months without issue.</p>

<p>In services, I get the message:</p>

<p><strong><em>"Windows could not start the Elasticsearch 1.7.2 (ELASTIC_POC) on Local Computer. For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non_Microsoft service, contact the service vendor, and refer to service specific error code 1."</em></strong></p>

<p>Event log was very unhelpful, showing the following error:</p>

<p><strong><em>"The Elasticsearch 1.7.2 (ELASTIC_POC) service entered the stopped state."</em></strong></p>

<p><strong><em>"The Elasticsearch 1.7.2 (ELASTIC_POC) service terminated with service-specific error Incorrect function.."</em></strong></p>

<p>I do get more information in Elastic Search own log files however:</p>

<pre><code>[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [info]  [ 3988] Running 'ELASTIC_POC' Service...
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [info]  [ 3760] Starting service...
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [error] [ 3760] Failed creating java C:\Progra~2\Java\jre1.8.0_60\bin\client\jvm.dll
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [error] [ 3760] The system cannot find the path specified.
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [error] [ 3760] ServiceStart returned 1
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [error] [ 3760] The system cannot find the path specified.
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [info]  [ 3988] Run service finished.
[2016-03-30 10:47:22] [info]  [ 3988] Commons Daemon procrun finished
</code></pre>

<p>Checking C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_60, it only contains a folder named "lib" (which is empty). There is a "jre1.8.0_73" folder that has several files, "including \bin\client\jvm.dll"</p>

<p>How can I either make Elastic Search use the later Java release, or bring back the contents for the jre1.8.0_60 folder? I can't seem to find (a safe to download) installer for this..</p>

<p>Any help greatly appreciated.</p>