require jre 1.3 or higher. ( But i have installed jre 1.8.)

Question

I have to use a software that require jre 1.3 or higher to run.( That is very software - last update is 9 years ago). My computer is win8 x64 and I have installed jre 1.8 on it. However the software didn't work, it show an error message: "require jre 1.3 or higher must be installed!". Please give me a solution. Thanks so much.

Answer 1

This kind of error is to my knowledge not part of the Java runtime itself. That means that some kind of version check has been incorrectly implemented by the developer.

The version of Java can be found in the system property java.runtime.version , which is a String formatted like "1.7.0_60-b19" . It's likely that this string value is checked, and that the developer made a programming mistake leading to this error.

As far as I know you cannot change the java.runtime.version property, so the only way around this is to install an older version or to fix the program.

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Java versions are always binary compatible with older versions up till now, which means that older .class files are supported. It is possible to code an application into a corner in such a way that it doesn't run anymore, but in that case you would not expect a smooth error message to occur.

When I said "smooth" above I meant that the application didn't crash with an exception. The grammar and the case of "jre" - if copied correctly - is another indication that this is not an exception generated within the JRE.

Earlier Java applications were sometimes directly linked with a certain Java runtime as company policy. Sad but true.