Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Switching versions of Java when you can't access browser settings

I’m about to launch into a long littany of geek-speak, so forgive me. This post is mostly for my future reference should I ever encounter the problem again and can’t remember how I fixed it.

At the office, the folks in IT don’t trust anyone to control their own browser settings, so they’ve locked it down. I can’t even make my browser display ALT text for images. It’s annoying, but for the most part not essential to my job. Except for one thing. An application we use to manage web content runs on Java. It’s optimized for MS Java.  Sun Java will run it, but if I navigate away from it, the stupid thing shuts down.  I have to go back and relaunch the application. Totally irritating!

Yesterday they finally got around to installing SP2 on my computer (this was released, what, 3 years ago?), which caused my browser to default to Sun Java.  Having to relaunch the same application so many times because it keeps closing itself is not exactly an effecient way to work. I have to change a browser setting to make it use MS Java instead of Sun, but I couldn’t because they made it inacessible to us. Fortunately I was still able to access the registry and make changes there.

Editing the registry is an excellent way to get around stupid lockdowns, but it can be a little dangerous. Always proceed with caution. To force your browser to use MS Java instead of Sun Java…

  1. Go to Start > Run and type “regedit” (without the quotes).
  2. Navigate through the folder structure to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JavaSoft\Java Web Start
  3. Look at the value for CurrentVersion. (Mine says 1.5.0_04, yours is likely different)
  4. Now go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JavaSoft\Java Plug-in and open the folder that corresponds with the value you noted above.
  5. Double-click on UseJava2IExplorer and change that value to 0.

If you are trying to do the opposite, namely switch from MS Java to Sun Java, then change that UseJava2IExplorer value to 1 instead of 0.  That should do it! The next time you open your browser this setting change will take effect. (NOTE: These instructions are for Windows XP. It is likely the same for Windows 2000, but I have no idea about Windows Vista.)

Posted by Geeky Dragon Girl on 07/18 at 05:47 AM
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Categories: • Random acts of geekery