<p>We have a couple of applications running on Java 5 and would like now to bring in an application based on Java 6. Can both java versions live together under Windows? </p>

<p>Is there any control panel to set the appropriate Java version for different applications, or any other way to set up, what version of Java will be used to run that particular application?</p>

Of course you can use multiple versions of Java under Windows. And different applications can use different Java versions. How is your application started? Usually you will have a batch file where there is something like
```
```
java ...
```
```
This will search the Java executable using the PATH variable. So if Java 5 is first on the PATH, you will have problems running a Java 6 application. You should then modify the batch file to use a certain Java version e.g. by defining a environment variable
```
JAVA6HOME
```
with the value
```
C:\java\java6
```
(if Java 6 is installed in this directory) and change the batch file calling
```
```
%JAVA6HOME%\bin\java ...
```
```