Force Internet Explorer to use a specific Java Runtime Environment install?

Question

First, disable the currently installed version of Java. To do this, go to Control Panel > Java > Advanced > Default Java for Browsers and uncheck Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Next, enable the version of Java you want to use instead. To do this, go to (for example) C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.5.0_15\bin (where jre1.5.0_15 is the version of Java you want to use), and run javacpl.exe. Go to Advanced > Default Java for Browsers and check Microsoft Internet Explorer.

To get your old version of Java back you need to reverse these steps.

Note that in older versions of Java, Default Java for Browsers is called <APPLET> Tag Support (but the effect is the same).

The good thing about this method is that it doesn't affect other browsers, and doesn't affect the default system JRE.

I have the same issue today and I concur with Jack Leow. Basically, on Windows XP, I had to go to Control Panel > Java and then:

1. Java tab
2. Click on "View" button
3. Enable only the JRE I want (i.e. JRE 1.5.x and keep 1.6.x disabled)
4. Restart IE
5. Load applet page in IE
6. Et voila, it's loading the correct JRE version!

For the server-side solution (which your question was originally ambiguous about), this page at sun lists one way to specify a JRE. Specifically,

<OBJECT 
  classid="clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93"
  width="200" height="200">
  <PARAM name="code" value="Applet1.class">
</OBJECT>

The classid attribute identifies which version of Java Plug-in to use.

Following is an alternative form of the classid attribute:

classid="clsid:CAFEEFAC-xxxx-yyyy-zzzz-ABCDEFFEDCBA"

In this form, "xxxx", "yyyy", and "zzzz" are four-digit numbers that identify the specific version of Java Plug-in to be used.

For example, to use Java Plug-in version 1.5.0, you specify:

classid="clsid:CAFEEFAC-0015-0000-0000-ABCDEFFEDCBA"

I'd give all the responses here a try first. But I wanted to just throw in what I do, just in case these do not work for you.

I've tried to solve the same problem you're having before, and in the end, what I decided on doing is to have only one JRE installed on my system at a given time. I do have about 10 different JDKs (1.3 through 1.6, and from various vendors - Sun, Oracle, IBM), since I do need it for development, but only one standalone JRE.

This has worked for me on my Windows 2000 + IE 6 computer at home, as well as my Windows XP + Multiple IE computer at work.

As has been mentioned here for JRE6 and JRE5, I will update for JRE1.4:

You will need to run the jpicpl32.exe application in the jre/bin directory of your java installation (e.g. c:\java\jdk1.4.2_07\jre\bin\jpicpl32.exe).

This is an earlier version of the application mentioned in Daniel Cassidy's post.