The directory windows of the CD contains version 6 of the the Java SDK. For the installation log in as administrator and execute the program jdk-6-windows-i586.exe (for 32-bit CPU) or jdk-6-windows-amd64.exe (for 64-bit CPU). Accept the license conditions und confirm the following questions with Next. If you are short of disk space, you can deactivate the demos and the source code. The installation includes the browser plugin that is necessary to run the Java applets in the browser. Test it now by looking at an applet page, e.g. the mathematical pendulum.
Next install NetBeans (still as administrator) by running netbeans-5_5-windows.exe in the windows directory. Again accept the license conditions und confirm all default values. If you have installed a different Java SDK (or several) you can now select which one NetBeans should use. You can as well choose different installation directories, this is irrelevant in the following.
Everything else should be done under a standard user account - i. e. without administrator rights! Therefore log off now and log in again using a proper username.1 Create an arbitrary directory for all your PhysBeans activities, e.g. C:\physbeans, and copy the PhysBeans library physbeans.jar from the directory PhysBeans\lib of the CD into it. Now start NetBeans and immediately exit again. This will create the directories for the user-specific part of the NetBeans configuration. You will find them at C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USERNAME\.netbeans\5.5\config.2
Now proceed with the configuration of NetBeans.
1 Of course this does not apply, if you use older Windows versions (95/98/ME).
2 Depending on your Windows version they can be somewhere else. To locate them use the directory search of Windows and look for .netbeans.