different environments (versions) for javac and java

Question

At the beginning I first installed JDK 7 on my Windows 7 operating system . As usual I added the following path of my newly installed Java Development Kit to the system variable PATH.

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_25\bin

When running javac and java commands in Command Prompt they have both pointed to the same environment. So far so good.

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For the purposes of Java application development at our enterprise I was forced to install an older instance of JDK thus installing JDK 6.

Below is the printout of my PATH system variable at the moment.

C:\dev\CollabNet\Subversion Client
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem
C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\
C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth Software\syswow64
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_37\bin
C:\Development\apache-maven-3.1.1\bin
C:\dev\apache-ant-1.7.1\bin
C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin

But now I faced the situation where javac and java versions are different therefore pointing to different environments.

C:\Users\rokprodan>javac -version
javac 1.6.0_37

C:\Users\rokprodan>java -version
java version "1.7.0_25"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_25-b17)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.25-b01, mixed mode)

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Does anybody have any suggestions and ideas for this situation? How could I achieve that both javac and java are pointing to JDK 6 ?

I deep appreciate your advices and help.

Answer 1

When you installed public JRE, java.exe was put into C:\WINDOWS\system32. But javac is not a part of JRE, so it is can be found only in C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_37\bin.

The solution is to place C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_37\bin before C:\WINDOWS\System32 in PATH environment variable.