Thread: "java -version" doesn't display proper value.

Hi,

I am new to java and facing a strange problem regarding java version. I have 1.4 and 1.5 both the JDKs installed on my Windows XP machine.

When I open command prompt and try to figure out what java version I have currently, it always gives me version 1.5. Even though when I set my path to “C:\j2sdk1.4.2_12\bin” and JAVA_HOME to “C:\j2sdk1.4.2_12”, this problem still persists. I wonder what I exactly need to do so that when I set my path and JAVA_HOME to 1.4 JDK it will reflect the same in “java –version” command on the command prompt.

Any help would be highly appreciated. Is there any chance that java –version is looking somewhere else than the environment variables?

Please advice!

Thanks in advance!

Goldest

So on your PATH variable you have JAVA_HOME/bin and your JAVA_HOME is set to point at your 1.4 install?

Preferably I'd install 1.6 if I was you and get rid of the other versions.

// Json

Thanks for your reply Jason!

That would be a good idea. But sometimes there are some dependencies like you need to compile your java files with some specific versions like 1.4/1.5/1.6 etc. So at that time when I am trying to set any specific version for compiling my source files, it is not working as my "java -version" is ONLY set to 1.5 instead of 1.4 though I am giving 1.4 paths through environment variables.

Thats my one of the concern.

Goldest

Some more info: This is how my environment variables look like

Case 1:
Path = .;C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_12\bin;C:\Program Files\... and so on
JAVA_HOME = C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.5.0_12

Case 2:
Path = .;C:\j2sdk1.4.2_12\bin;C:\Program Files\... and so on
JAVA_HOME = C:\j2sdk1.4.2_12

In both the cases it displays the java version as java version "1.5.0_12"

There is ONLY one declaration of bin folder in path. I don't have any 1.5 path declared in the path variable before 1.4.

I don't know what exactly can be the issue.

Please suggest

Ok, what you want to do is install Java 1.6 latest JDK.

When you compile programs and you want them compiled in 1.4 use the -source option.

javac -source 1.4

For more information see javac - Java programming language compiler

// Json

That would be a nice way to go Json.

Thanks a lot.

Goldest