Terrible Eclipse (3.5) - problem with "Install new software"

I want to install additional software for开发者_如何学运维 Eclipse (I use 3.5 because 3.6 is not yet for Scala and Android).

Problem is:

• The downloads / installations are INSANELY slow, I didn't get past 5% on the ADT plugin (for example) in one hour - same for everything else I tried

• Firefox (no other software so far, IE works fine, etc...) is slowed down when it comes to Internet connectivity as long as "install new software" is running

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit here on a quadcore machine with 4 GB of RAM and an 8 MBit / sec DSL.

Is this a known issue, are there any fixes or will I have to stop considering developing for Android phones?

And yes, I disabled everything - firewall, Skype, etc...

Nothing helped.

JDK installed is 6u21, latest release (installed it today).

Try to uncheck the option 'Contact all update sites during install to find required software' when installing ADT. But you must install all plug-ins required by ADT firstly, such as GEF.

That 6u21 may be your problem, depending on how recently you downloaded it (and, if from a mirror, how up to date the mirror is). They changed "Sun Microsystems, Inc" to "Oracle", and Eclipse was relying on that string for resolution of a bug:

http://m.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/oracle-rebrands-java-breaks-eclipse/2012

From the article: "If you downloaded Java for Windows 32-bit or 64-bit recently, be sure you have the 1.6.0_21-b07 version and not b06."