Reiner Saddey’s Place

Google Chrome and Java - Needing Both Java 5 and 6 - an Experience in Nightmares - Possible Solution Provided

Posted on March 21st, 2009 by Reiner.
Categories: Chrome, Java, English, Computers.

When you google for Google Chrome and Java you’ll find poor souls that are driven to distraction by Chrome insisting that there is no Java 6 Update 10 or later installed.

Maybe, there are no problems on a clean virgin-like system in mint condition, just unwrapped from its packaging. That’s not mine. I’m a Java developer and all sorts of Java VMs tend to pile up. Right now, I’ll need at least two of them: Java 5 and Java 6.

After an hour of agonizing failures, I found a way to have both Java 5 and Java 6 on my PC and still be able to run Java applets within Google Chrome:

1. Remove all and every bit of Java, including changes to environment variables (e.g. JAVA_HOME and PATH)
2. Install Java 6 SDK+JRE (as of now it’s Update 12 - ok for Chrome)
3. Install Java 5 SDK+JRE unchecking any browser applet integration checkboxes (not sure, whether this is required).
4. Add any environment variables you might need (pointing to Java 6).

Now I have all three of them, Java 5, Java 6 and Chrome running Java 6 applets

It still puzzles me, I had to install Java 6 first and then Java 5. The other way around would not allow Chrome to recognize Java 6, regardless of any changes being applied to Java within Control Panel…

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