Upgrade ColdFusion JDK on Windows

I know this has been blogged before, but for my own reference I wanted to post it.

I'm working on a site that uses a lot of cfcs and the start up time is painfully slow so I decided to upgrade the JDK. ColdFusion 8.0.1 ships with 1.6.0_04 which has a known class loader bug which was fixed in JDK 1.6.0_10. The steps are quite straight forward:

1. Go to http://java.sun.com/products/archive/j2se/6u11/index.html
2. Download JDK 6u11 (Not the JRE!)
3. Install it. By default this goes into your program files directory, so you may want to change it.
4. Stop ColdFusion.
5. Find your ColdFusion jvm.config file (default is C:\ColdFusion8\runtime\bin\jvm.config)
6. Make a back up of your jvm.config.
7. If you haven't made a back up, make a back up!
8. Change the line from:
   java.home=C:/ColdFusion8/runtime/jre
   
   to
   
   #java.home=C:/ColdFusion8/runtime/jre
   java.home=C:/Program Files/Java/jdk1.6.0_11/jre
9. Save the file.
10. Start the ColdFusion service. Watch in awe at the speed improvements :)

Special Note

If you are running ColdFusion 8 standard edition on a 64 bit server, then you need to download the 32bit version of the JDK as ColdFusion standard is probably running as 32 bit.

If you're not sure if ColdFusion is running as 32 bit, then just fir up Task Manager and if jrun.exe has a *32 after it, then it's running as a 32bit process.

• Posted in:
• ColdFusion

6 comments

1. Hey John,
   
   How much of a speed improvement did you notice - 10% ?
   
   Comment by Nick Tong – April 07, 2009
2. Hey Nick! I'd say that it seems like more than 10%. I didn't actually time it and also installed the Cumulative Hot Fix 2 for ColdFusion 8.0.1 at the same time kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb403781&sliceId=1
   
   Comment by John Whish – April 07, 2009
3. Hi John,
   
   thanks for the overview, which is much better than the once I found somewhere else.
   
   Speed improvement feeling of more than 10 %.
   
   Comment by MaFi – April 21, 2009
4. Thank you for the overview.
   
   I followed your instructions and all looks to work as described, and speed does look to be better. My qustion is this. via the CF admin should teh Java Version update or will it stay at 1.6.0_04 ?
   
   Thank you
   
   Comment by Rog – May 16, 2009
5. Hi Rog, In the CFIDE it should say something like 1.6.0_11 for the Java Version. Check "Java Home" path if it still says 1.6.0_04.
   
   Comment by John Whish – May 19, 2009
6. Thanks for your clear instructions.
   When you install a new JDK, such as JDK 6u11, does colfdusion use 6u11 to compile your code? I am curious since java.home in jvm.config points to the JRE path and I didn't see a separate JDK path setting.
   
   As a side note I noticed the C:\ColdFusion8\ directory doesn't contain javac.exe but it does contain jikes.exe, which is an open source compiler. I am running CF 8.0.1 as a standalone installation.
   
   Comment by Marc – October 22, 2009