What a great holiday! I feel so invigorated after a few days off. Luckily it doesn't take much.
So I'm thinking about Java these days as I've recently been performing so many implementations and upgrades in dramatically different environments. Below are my notes from all over including Kronos.com, Kronos-Fans and all my friends and work buddies.
Firstly, well, I'm not going to answer the first question because it's changed so much over the years. Hopefully someone out there has created a little table and will post it here. I can point you to the latest bulletin I've read though so we're all on the same page. ‘How To Set Java Plugin Settings in WFC 6.0.8 for a Mixed Environment of JRE 1.5 and JRE 1.6'. This will actually answer both questions. Workforce Central 6.0.8 supports JRE 1.6.0_5 or higher.
Yes! Some sites may not want to push Java 1.6 to all clients. Instead, they will have a mixed environment to allow more flexibility while clients migrate to the latest Java Run Time environment. How can the Java plugin settings be changed to allow Workforce to use JRE 1.6 if it is installed, but otherwise use JRE 1.5?
Firstly, the site MUST utilize the Family Class ID system as outlined by Sun Microsystems. This system and its implementation were described in a Kronos Customer Support Technical Advisory. Go to the Kronos customer support site, login and search for it.
Note that only ONE version of the plug-in can be resident in memory on a client at a time. This means that when 1.6 is used for a non-Kronos application, and the user wants to open WFC, they must close ALL browser windows on the client, then open a new browser for use with WFC. This will ensure that the 1.5 plug-in can be loaded into memory and used with Workforce.
Rich asked in Kronos-Fans, "I went in and updated the Java Plugin settings as indicated below and when I try running with 1.5 and then on another PC with 1.6 it seems to actually load a lot quicker for both versions of Java. Have you tried this at all? Is it safe and does it make any difference do you know?"
He was reading from the document mentioned above from customer.kronos.com. I've not tried it yet but I've gotten confirmation it's safe and works well. What I'm unsure about is that my notes show this particular CLSID to be the Universal one. It will use the latest version of Java installed on the client. Therefore, if JRE 1.6.0_5 or later is installed, it will launch JRE 1.6. In all other cases, it will use JRE 1.5.
In answer to the speed question, again because of Rich's findings, I'm stumped. It seems to me that if we point to the specific instance we want to use, such as the JRE 1.6.0_7, it should be faster, but that's not what he is finding. Anyway, here's what you do if you want your Kronos apps to use this.
Log in to Workforce, on your TEST system, as a SuperUser and select Setup-->System Settings-->Java Plug-in Settings. Edit the site.java.plugin.CLSID.familyVersion to be:
clsid:8AD9C840-044E-11D1-B3E9-00805F499D93
Click Save, logout and back in to test.
This next set of settings, to put the above mentioned one in context, is for JRE 1.6.0_7
site.java.plugin.installer: jre-6u7-windows-i586-p-s.exe
site.java.plugin.version.minimalVersion: 1.6.0_5
site.java.plugin.CLSID.familyVersion: clsid:CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-FFFF-ABCDEFFEDCBA
site.java.plugin.type.familyVersion: 1.6.0
site.java.plugin.version.installVersion: 6,0,070,0
Check out the related article: How To Configure JRE 1.6 Support in Workforce Central Suite Service Pack 6.0.8 (6C4-JW2-0U2-79I)