I have extracted a .class file from the rt.jar file in jre1.7, and have attempted to open it using notepad++, however it is unreadable. How can I decompile the .class file into a .java file so I can view the code?
Please note that I am interested in the decompilation of the code, not viewing the source code provided in the JDK downloads.
As @Jon Skeet said, don't use JRE but JDK, which contains the entire source code. If you for some reason insist on your approach, then I recommend JD-GUI for decompilation.