Java SE Runtime Environment 7

Java SE Runtime Environment 7 enables support for running Java-powered applets and applications. This release includes fully supported JRE for Mac OS X 10.7.3 (Lion) and above. You can download the Mac OS X JDK and JRE from Java SE Downloads page.

If you are running a release of Mac OS X that includes Apple Java 6, for example 10.7.3, 10.7.4, 10.8.0, there is an important difference about the installation of Oracle Java (both JRE and JDK) that you should be aware of.

The Applications -> Utilities -> Java Preferences application is part of Apple's implementation of Java. Once Apple no longer distributes Java as part of their release, the Java Preferences application is retired.

Under Apple's implementation of Java, it was possible to have multiple JREs installed, and the Java Preferences app was used to.

• Launch Java Preferences. The Java Preferences window contains a list of installed JREs. Java applications and command line tools use the listed order to determine the first compatible version to use. The Vendor column indicates whether the Java release is supplied by Apple or Oracle. The Version column specifies the version of Java that is installed.
• To make JRE 7 the default version of Java, re-order the list by dragging Java SE 7 to the top of the list.

New Features and Changes

• New Command-line option to Identify Use of Deprecated Mechanisms - The endorsed-standards override mechanism and the extension mechanism are deprecated in JDK 8u40 and may be removed in a future release. There are no runtime changes. Existing applications using the 'endorsed-standards override' or 'extension' mechanisms are recommended to migrate away from using these mechanisms. To help identify any existing uses of these mechanisms, the -XX:+CheckEndorsedAndExtDirs command-line option is available. It will fail if any of the following conditions is true:
  • -Djava.endorsed.dirs or -Djava.ext.dirs system property is set to alter the default location; or
  • ${java.home}/lib/endorsed directory exists; or
  • ${java.home}/lib/ext contains any JAR files excluding the ones that JDK ships; or
  • any platform-specific system-wide extension directory contains any JAR files.
  The -XX:+CheckEndorsedAndExtDirs command-line option is supported in JDK 7u80 and later releases.

Bug Fixes

• Area: tools/jar
  Synopsis: Improve jar file handling
  Starting with JDK 7u79 release, the jar tool no longer allows the leading slash "/" and ".." (dot-dot) path component in zip entry file name when creating new and/or extracting from zip and jar file. If needed, the new command line option "-P" should be used explicitly to preserve the dot-dot and/or absolute path component.