Chrome/java version difficulties

[Daimoth]

Running a HelloWorld applet results in this when opened in Chrome:

java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: HelloWorld : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
	at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass0(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.createApplet(Unknown Source)
	at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Exception: java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: HelloWorld : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0

So I found out my jdk is 1.7.x and Chrome's java is 1.6.x, so I tried compiling with -source 1.6, got this warning:

bootstrap class path not set in conjunction with source 1.6

Running the newly compiled class, I got same error. I didn't understand the warning, so I wikipedia'd "bootstrap", which didn't help make things any more clear, to be honest. So now I come here. Anybody know what the problem is?

[doWhile]

Try setting the target version JRE (-target 1.6)

[Daimoth]

Thanks for the reply.

Compiler refused, stating:

target release 1.6 conflicts with  default source release 1.7

[DarrylBurke]

What's the exact compiler command you entered?

db

[Daimoth]

javac *.java -target 1.6

[doWhile]

javac *.java -target 1.6

javac options should precede the compilation source files.

javac -target 1.6 mysourcefile.java

See the help for javac: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs...ows/javac.html (see the cross-compilation example near the bottom)

[Daimoth]

True, but in this case it didn't fix anything.

I've read that a way around this is to completely uninstall 1.7 and install 1.6, instead I'm going to try installing both JDK's and put them both in path.

On a computer with properly updated Chrome, the plugins all work, but I would like to know how to add backward compatibility to my little programs. Do you guys have any tips or resources for that?

[DarrylBurke]

May be related to this bug report: Bug ID: 6856165 tests with explicit -target 1.5 fail with jdk7 since javac now defaults to 1.7

Try

javac -source 1.6 -target 1.6 mysourcefile.java

db

[Daimoth]

Bleh, I'm anxious to try your solution, but I don't have access to the crappy computer on which I had this problem.