@ScottWillis Good info, thanks for that!
That means the version of java we want is this one:
http://javadl.sun.com/webapps/download/AutoDL?BundleId=106367
which will give us a file called “jre-7u79-windows-i586.exe”, then you can install that and try the “start-windows.bat” file again. I mean, one of these days, it’s bound to work 
@Zach_Kaplan thanks for hooking him up with the beta access, but I think Easel does the standard “image to vector” conversion like Inkscape does, right? James is trying to get good results from a photo, which is why I started him down this path, here was the result of his earlier attempt.