Multiple Java versions running concurrently under Windows

Question

We have a couple of applications running on Java 5 and would like now to bring in an application based on Java 6  Can both java versions live together under Windows    Is there any control panel to set the appropriate Java version for different applications  or any other way to set up  what version of Java will be used to run that particular application

User · Accepted Answer

Of course you can use multiple versions of Java under Windows. And different applications can use different Java versions. How is your application started? Usually you will have a batch file where there is something like

java ...

This will search the Java executable using the PATH variable. So if Java 5 is first on the PATH, you will have problems running a Java 6 application. You should then modify the batch file to use a certain Java version e.g. by defining a environment variable JAVA6HOME with the value C:\java\java6 (if Java 6 is installed in this directory) and change the batch file calling

%JAVA6HOME%\bin\java ...

User · Answer

It should be possible changing setting the JAVA HOME environment variable differently for specific applications    When starting from the command line or from a batch script you can use set JAVA HOME C      j2dskXXX to change the JAVA HOME environment   It is possible that you also need to change the PATH environment variable to use the correct java binary  To do this you can use set PATH  JAVA HOME  bin  PATH

User · Answer

Invoking Java with  java -version 1 5   etc  should run with the correct version of Java   Obviously replace 1 5 with the version you want    If Java is properly installed on Windows there are paths to the vm for each version stored in the registry which it uses so you don t need to mess about with environment versions on Windows

User · Answer

Or use links  While it is rather unpleasant to update the PATH in a running environment  it s easy to recreate a link to a new version of JRE JDK  So     install different versions of JDK you want to use create a link to that folder either by junction or by built-in mklink command set the PATH to the link If other version of java is to be used  delete the link  create a new one  PATH JAVA HOME hardcoded scripts remain untouched

User · Answer

We can install multiple versions of Java Development kits on the same machine using SDKMan   Some points about SDKMan are as following      SDKMan is free to use and it is developed by the open source community  SDKMan is written in bash and it only requires curl and zip unzip programs to be present on your system  SDKMan can install around 29 Software Development Kits for the JVM such as Java  Groovy  Scala  Kotlin and Ceylon  Ant  Gradle  Grails  Maven  SBT  Spark  Spring Boot  Vert x  We do not need to worry about setting the  HOME and PATH environment variables because SDKMan handles it automatically    SDKMan can run on any UNIX based platforms such as Mac OSX  Linux  Cygwin  Solaris and FreeBSD and we can install it using following commands     curl -s  https   get sdkman io    bash     source   HOME  sdkman bin sdkman-init sh        Because SDKMan is written in bash and only requires curl and zip unzip to be present on your system  You can install SDKMan on windows as well either by first installing Cygwin or Git Bash for Windows environment and then running above commands    Command sdk list java will give us a list of java versions which we can install using SDKMan   Installing Java 8    sdk install java 8 0 201-oracle   Installing Java 9    sdk install java 9 0 4-open    Installing Java 11    sdk install java 11 0 2-open   Uninstalling a Java version  In case you want to uninstall any JDK version e g   11 0 2-open you can do that as follows     sdk uninstall java 11 0 2-open   Switching current Java version  If you want to activate one version of JDK for all terminals and applications  you can use the command   sdk default java  lt your-java version gt    Above commands will also update the PATH and JAVA HOME variables automatically  You can read more on my article How to Install Multiple Versions of Java on the Same Machine

User · Answer

Or use links  While it is rather unpleasant to update the PATH in a running environment  it s easy to recreate a link to a new version of JRE JDK  So     install different versions of JDK you want to use create a link to that folder either by junction or by built-in mklink command set the PATH to the link If other version of java is to be used  delete the link  create a new one  PATH JAVA HOME hardcoded scripts remain untouched

User · Answer

I was appalled at the clumsiness of the CLASSPATH  JAVA HOME  and PATH ideas  in Windows  to keep track of Java files   I got here  because of multiple JREs  and how to content with it   Without regurgitating information  from a guy much more clever than me  I would rather point to to his article on this issue  which for me  resolves it perfectly   Article by  Ted Neward  Multiple Java Homes  Giving Java Apps Their Own JRE     With the exponential growth of Java as a server-side development language has come an equivablent   exponential growth in Java development tools  environments  frameworks  and extensions    Unfortunately  not all of these tools play nicely together under the same Java VM installation  Some   require a Servlet 2 1-compliant environment  some require 2 2  Some only run under JDK 1 2 or above    some under JDK 1 1  and no higher   Some require the  com sun swing  packages from pre-Swing 1 0   days  others require the  javax swing  package names       Worse yet  this problem can be found even within the corporate enterprise  as systems developed using   Java from just six months ago may suddenly  not work  due to the installation of some Java Extension   required by a new  seemingly unrelated  application release  This can complicate deployment of Java   applications across the corporation  and lead customers to wonder precisely why  five years after the   start of the infamous  Installing-this-app-breaks-my-system  woes began with Microsoft s DLL schemes    we still haven t progressed much beyond that   In fact  the new  NET initiative actually seeks to solve the   infamous  DLL-Hell  problem just described        This paper describes how to configure a Java installation such that a given application receives its own    private  JRE  allowing multiple Java environments to coexist without driving customers  or system   administrators  insane

User · Answer

It should be possible changing setting the JAVA HOME environment variable differently for specific applications    When starting from the command line or from a batch script you can use set JAVA HOME C      j2dskXXX to change the JAVA HOME environment   It is possible that you also need to change the PATH environment variable to use the correct java binary  To do this you can use set PATH  JAVA HOME  bin  PATH

User · Answer

It is absolutely possible to install side-by-side several JRE JDK versions  Moreover  you don t have to do anything special for that to happen  as Sun is creating a different folder for each  under Program Files    There is no control panel to check which JRE works for each application  Basically  the JRE that will work would be the first in your PATH environment variable  You can change that  or the JAVA HOME variable  or create specific cmd bat files to launch the applications you desire  each with a different JRE in path

User · Answer

Using Java Web Start  you can install multiple JRE  then call what you need  On win  you can make a  bat file   1- online version   lt your JRE version bin javaws exe  -localfile -J-Djnlp application href  lt the url of  jnlp file jnlp  -localfile -J   lt path temp jnlp file  jnlp    2- launch from cache   lt your JRE version bin javaws exe  -localfile -J   lt path of your local jnlp file jnlp

User · Answer

I use a simple script when starting jmeter with my own java versin   setlocal set JAVA HOME  c  java8  set PATH  JAVA HOME  bin  PATH   java -version   to have a java  portable   you can use this method here   https   www whitebyte info programming java how-to-install-a-portable-jdk-in-windows-without-admin-rights

User · Answer

It is absolutely possible to install side-by-side several JRE JDK versions  Moreover  you don t have to do anything special for that to happen  as Sun is creating a different folder for each  under Program Files    There is no control panel to check which JRE works for each application  Basically  the JRE that will work would be the first in your PATH environment variable  You can change that  or the JAVA HOME variable  or create specific cmd bat files to launch the applications you desire  each with a different JRE in path

User · Answer

I was appalled at the clumsiness of the CLASSPATH  JAVA HOME  and PATH ideas  in Windows  to keep track of Java files   I got here  because of multiple JREs  and how to content with it   Without regurgitating information  from a guy much more clever than me  I would rather point to to his article on this issue  which for me  resolves it perfectly   Article by  Ted Neward  Multiple Java Homes  Giving Java Apps Their Own JRE     With the exponential growth of Java as a server-side development language has come an equivablent   exponential growth in Java development tools  environments  frameworks  and extensions    Unfortunately  not all of these tools play nicely together under the same Java VM installation  Some   require a Servlet 2 1-compliant environment  some require 2 2  Some only run under JDK 1 2 or above    some under JDK 1 1  and no higher   Some require the  com sun swing  packages from pre-Swing 1 0   days  others require the  javax swing  package names       Worse yet  this problem can be found even within the corporate enterprise  as systems developed using   Java from just six months ago may suddenly  not work  due to the installation of some Java Extension   required by a new  seemingly unrelated  application release  This can complicate deployment of Java   applications across the corporation  and lead customers to wonder precisely why  five years after the   start of the infamous  Installing-this-app-breaks-my-system  woes began with Microsoft s DLL schemes    we still haven t progressed much beyond that   In fact  the new  NET initiative actually seeks to solve the   infamous  DLL-Hell  problem just described        This paper describes how to configure a Java installation such that a given application receives its own    private  JRE  allowing multiple Java environments to coexist without driving customers  or system   administrators  insane

User · Answer

It should be possible changing setting the JAVA HOME environment variable differently for specific applications    When starting from the command line or from a batch script you can use set JAVA HOME C      j2dskXXX to change the JAVA HOME environment   It is possible that you also need to change the PATH environment variable to use the correct java binary  To do this you can use set PATH  JAVA HOME  bin  PATH

User · Answer

I use a simple script when starting jmeter with my own java versin   setlocal set JAVA HOME  c  java8  set PATH  JAVA HOME  bin  PATH   java -version   to have a java  portable   you can use this method here   https   www whitebyte info programming java how-to-install-a-portable-jdk-in-windows-without-admin-rights

User · Answer

It is absolutely possible to install side-by-side several JRE JDK versions  Moreover  you don t have to do anything special for that to happen  as Sun is creating a different folder for each  under Program Files    There is no control panel to check which JRE works for each application  Basically  the JRE that will work would be the first in your PATH environment variable  You can change that  or the JAVA HOME variable  or create specific cmd bat files to launch the applications you desire  each with a different JRE in path

User · Answer

Using Java Web Start  you can install multiple JRE  then call what you need  On win  you can make a  bat file   1- online version   lt your JRE version bin javaws exe  -localfile -J-Djnlp application href  lt the url of  jnlp file jnlp  -localfile -J   lt path temp jnlp file  jnlp    2- launch from cache   lt your JRE version bin javaws exe  -localfile -J   lt path of your local jnlp file jnlp

User · Answer

If you use Java Web Start  you can start applications from any URL  even the local file system  it will take care of finding the right version for your application

User · Answer

Invoking Java with  java -version 1 5   etc  should run with the correct version of Java   Obviously replace 1 5 with the version you want    If Java is properly installed on Windows there are paths to the vm for each version stored in the registry which it uses so you don t need to mess about with environment versions on Windows

User · Answer

If you use Java Web Start  you can start applications from any URL  even the local file system  it will take care of finding the right version for your application

User · Answer

It is absolutely possible to install side-by-side several JRE JDK versions  Moreover  you don t have to do anything special for that to happen  as Sun is creating a different folder for each  under Program Files    There is no control panel to check which JRE works for each application  Basically  the JRE that will work would be the first in your PATH environment variable  You can change that  or the JAVA HOME variable  or create specific cmd bat files to launch the applications you desire  each with a different JRE in path

User · Answer

We can install multiple versions of Java Development kits on the same machine using SDKMan   Some points about SDKMan are as following      SDKMan is free to use and it is developed by the open source community  SDKMan is written in bash and it only requires curl and zip unzip programs to be present on your system  SDKMan can install around 29 Software Development Kits for the JVM such as Java  Groovy  Scala  Kotlin and Ceylon  Ant  Gradle  Grails  Maven  SBT  Spark  Spring Boot  Vert x  We do not need to worry about setting the  HOME and PATH environment variables because SDKMan handles it automatically    SDKMan can run on any UNIX based platforms such as Mac OSX  Linux  Cygwin  Solaris and FreeBSD and we can install it using following commands     curl -s  https   get sdkman io    bash     source   HOME  sdkman bin sdkman-init sh        Because SDKMan is written in bash and only requires curl and zip unzip to be present on your system  You can install SDKMan on windows as well either by first installing Cygwin or Git Bash for Windows environment and then running above commands    Command sdk list java will give us a list of java versions which we can install using SDKMan   Installing Java 8    sdk install java 8 0 201-oracle   Installing Java 9    sdk install java 9 0 4-open    Installing Java 11    sdk install java 11 0 2-open   Uninstalling a Java version  In case you want to uninstall any JDK version e g   11 0 2-open you can do that as follows     sdk uninstall java 11 0 2-open   Switching current Java version  If you want to activate one version of JDK for all terminals and applications  you can use the command   sdk default java  lt your-java version gt    Above commands will also update the PATH and JAVA HOME variables automatically  You can read more on my article How to Install Multiple Versions of Java on the Same Machine

User · Answer

Invoking Java with  java -version 1 5   etc  should run with the correct version of Java   Obviously replace 1 5 with the version you want    If Java is properly installed on Windows there are paths to the vm for each version stored in the registry which it uses so you don t need to mess about with environment versions on Windows

User · Answer

Invoking Java with  java -version 1 5   etc  should run with the correct version of Java   Obviously replace 1 5 with the version you want    If Java is properly installed on Windows there are paths to the vm for each version stored in the registry which it uses so you don t need to mess about with environment versions on Windows

User · Answer

It should be possible changing setting the JAVA HOME environment variable differently for specific applications    When starting from the command line or from a batch script you can use set JAVA HOME C      j2dskXXX to change the JAVA HOME environment   It is possible that you also need to change the PATH environment variable to use the correct java binary  To do this you can use set PATH  JAVA HOME  bin  PATH

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