How to set Java versions on Mac
Leopard came pre-installed with Java 1.5, during the 10.5.6 updated, Java 1.6 was added. But this did not overwrite or delete the previous Java version, it’s still there. You should just usually leave this alone — unless you’re a Java programmer, or somebody with insatiable curiosity and can’t resist goofing around with it — it shouldn’t break anything; Just in case it does you can switch the Java version in current use to another Java version that is installed in your Mac.
Setting the Java version in your Mac
If Vuze or Limewire or any other apps you have that depends Java is acting up, you may want to switch your Java versions first to Java 5 32 bit, as a first means troubleshooting.
The easy way is to use Java Preferences, just use Spotlight to find it (command+space bar then type Java Preferences). You will have 2 point of controls, Java version for applets and for applications, they don’t necessarily have to be the same, but the settings usually are — if you set applet to JDK 5, you probably want to set applications to JDK 5 as well.
The other way of setting Java version in your Mac is doing it via the terminal (use spotlight, then type Terminal) . To find out which version you are currently using, type java -version
To find out where the Java executable is, you can use ls -l `which java`, it will point you to /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions.
From there you can change the softlinks of Current and CurrentJDK to point to the appropriate version.
I won’t elaborate on this anymore, because if you knew what ls -l `which java` means in UNIX, then you know what you’re doing, you can take it from here. I’d like to keep the guide simple for non-Terminal folks.
When do you need to switch the Java version
Hopefully you don’t have to deal with this, but if you are using applications that are sensitive to the Java versions you are using — like Vuze or Limewire — then you may need to dabble with the Java preferences from time to time. If Limewire or Vuze or any app you have that depends on Java is misbehaving, try switching your Java version to Java 5 32 bit (from personal experience, the Java 6 64 bit version is messing up Vuze and Limewire).
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3.16.2009at 18:25
[...] Original post by KindaWannaDoThat [...]