xmlbeans-maven-plugin not finding javac

I am trying to setup xmlbeans-maven-plugin 2.3.3 in my Eclipse and while everything seems to go OK, It fails with an java.io.IOException due to inability to find the file C:\Users\Daniel\Workspace\MyProject\javac.

This is strange because javac is on the system's %PATH% so why would it try to find it in %PROJECT_LOC%?

I found this problem description which sounds very similar to mine, but I placed the JDK path in front of all other paths and that didn't help.

Any idea how to tell the xmlbeans-maven-plugin where to look for javac?

UPDATE 1: I tried working around this problem by simply copying javac.exe to the project's directory and at least it now finds it but the problem moved forward to:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/sun/tools/javac/Main
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.tools.javac.Main
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
Exception in thread "main" Could not find the main class: com.sun.tools.javac.Main.  Program will exit.

Any insight that could help come up with the correct solution to this (e.g. something in .m2/settings.xml?) would be appreciated.

UPDATE 2: I also tried this little solution I found in my searches:

<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0
                      http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
  <localRepository>c:\maven\repository</localRepository>
   <configuration>
    <compiler>C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_37\bin\javac.exe</compiler>
   </configuration>
</settings>

But that didn't help the plugin find javac. It still complains about "The system cannot find the file specified" for javac.exe.

Found the solution! In the project's pom.xml, simply add the following inside <configuration>:

<compiler>C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_37\bin\javac.exe</compiler>

i.e.

        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
            <artifactId>xmlbeans-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.3.3</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>xmlbeans</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
            <inherited>true</inherited>
            <configuration>
                <schemaDirectory>${basedir}/src/main/xsd</schemaDirectory>
                <compiler>C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_37\bin\javac.exe</compiler>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

Also, be sure to point the Window -> Preferences -> Java -> installed JREs to the JDK's, not JRE's: C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_37. As described in this thread.