I've been working with Java for a bit now and the JDK/JRE version has given me quite a bit of trouble lately. I am developing using the Intellij IDEA IDE and it of course uses the latest version of the JDK, 14. However when I attempt to execute software compiled with JDK 14 outside the IDE, I get an error that the JRE isn't new enough to run this software. So I updated Java on my computer and another machine and attempt to run again without any success. After some digging, I tweaked my machine to use the JRE included in the JDK 14 which is compatible.
However it is kind of odd that I had to do that, one would think that the latest version of java should of been enough to run applications made with the latest version of the JDK (14). Right now Java is version 8 build 251 and says there is no newer update available. If JDK 14 is out for a while now, why would they not update the version of Java they ship?
The problem is partially solved, as only the machine I am using for development is capable of executing the created applications. Other people I've sent them to have been unable to run them, despite having the latest version of java. Also it is a pain to get the latest JDK, especially when having limited experience on how to get rid of old versions, change path point to the latest version, get the right package (open/oracle JDK) and do that for windows and several distrubutions of linux. What is going on? Did I get Java from the wrong place and everyone else as well? Why are oracle doing this and why are there no java updates since clearly there exists a newer version?
Starting with Java-11, separate JRE does not exist anymore. In other words, if you are using Java-11 or above, you should care about JDK only.
You should uninstall JRE-8 from your machine and make sure your JDK-14 bin folder in the PATH variable. Some application even requires JAVA_HOME to work and therefore you should make sure that your system has an environment variable called JAVA_HOME and its value set to the root folder of JDK-14 (i.e. one level above your JDK bin).
Q: What should my clients do to run my application compiled on JDK-14?
Ans: Your clients must install JDK-14. Also, check this thread for some alternatives.
You're confusing how IntelliJ or JDK are used on the OS. IntelliJ, now, often comes with its JDK binaries (but even this can be configured, IntelliJ can be configured to use any JDK/JRE build you'll provide to it); however, if you run your Java application out of IntelliJ, most likely you're using Java installed locally on your OS, which might be referenced via your JAVA_HOME environment variable.
I'd suggest to:
Check java -version in your shell (and hence you'll see what JVM instance your OS spins up when you run a Java application);
Check where java (on Windows, or which - on Linux) in your shell, to see all the Java binaries available on your OS.
Try to uninstall Java SE Development Kit and Java JRE(if you have both in your machine) and reinstall both again, JDK and JRE both, I am sharing my google drive link where you can find the latest version of both JDK and JRE and when you are done installing, add there bin folder path in the Environment Variables of your machine.
usually when installing an updated JRE, the environment variables will be set so that running any java command in CMD will use the new version.
I've just installed JDK 11 which doesn't have a JRE equivalent - well it's in the JDK - but java commands are still being sent to JRE 8.
This is no problem for me, I can always change the environment vars myself and point to "C:\Program Files/java/jdk-11/bin/java.exe", but anyone who wants to use my program, which requires Java 11, will not have their variables set and it's a bit much to ask them to do so.
Why are they not being set on a standard Java 11 install? Am I being stupid?
Oracle is still pushing 8 as the "end user" Java install. That's why it's the only one you can find on java.com. Newer versions of Java are designed either for back-end use on servers, or to be bundled with the application itself. The latter option is what you want.
How can I get all the Java versions installed on my Mac?
Is there a terminal command for this?
When I run java -version, I get the current JRE version that is in use in my system, but I want to list all the JREs installed on my Mac.
/usr/libexec/java_home -V
lists one line per Java environment installed (and known to the /usr/bin/java command).
You can still have other Java distributions which are not registered. They are typically downloaded as ZIP files without an installer, or using another package manager like homebrew.
The accepted solution didn't work for me.
The results it returned didn't include all the Java versions installed.
For example on my machine there are currently 5 installations, but the accepted solution only returns 3.
What eventually did work for me is:
mdfind -name 'java' | grep '/bin/java$'
It finds all java installations on the system regardless of how they were installed. This way I found the specific java installation which I was looking for.
Explanation of how it works:
mdfind is a native tool in MacOS to search for different files by given query, it's very fast (usually way faster than find)
The given command is looking for everything called java and then filter only the results that end with /bin/java which is the typical suffix of java installations
when I enter "whereis java" in terminal is says: /usr/bin/java
when I enter "java -version" it says "1.6.0_43" ...
when I open the Java control panel in system preference, the only version that i can see is Java 1.7.0_17 with the location at "/Library/Internet Plug-ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/bin/java". I don't have a "Java preference" panel that provides me to choose which version to use with some priority.
It is obvious that when internet browser is using, java 7 will be used and while I'm compiling Java in terminal Java 6 is used. But how could I get rid of Java 6? Is there a way that I could install Java 7 under /usr/bin/java?
BTW, I am not sure how to use the .profile file. Could i modify this file so that when I am in the terminal i can still use java 7?
Download Java SE 7u4 from Oracle.
Install it.
This version is different from the version downloaded while browsing the website.
It is really wired though...
In the meantime version 7u4 is no longer current and full of security holes!
My solution (which I got from the link provided in the comments) was to install the current Version of Java and start /Applications/Utilities/Java-Settings which displays the currently installed Java versions and allows to set the default version. Drag the current version to the top. Then /usr/bin/java pointed to the right version.
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?
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 ...
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...
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.
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 <your-java_version>
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.
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%.
I use a simple script when starting JMeter with my own java version
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
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
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.
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.
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:
<your_JRE_version\bin\javaws.exe> -localfile -J-Djnlp.application.href=<the url of .jnlp file.jnlp> -localfile -J "<path_temp_jnlp_file_.jnlp>"
2- launch from cache:
<your_JRE_version\bin\javaws.exe> -localfile -J "<path_of_your_local_jnlp_file.jnlp>"