WebSphere 6.1 Gotcha
(Originally published January 25, 2009)
I found this little gotcha in WebSphere Application Server (WAS) 6.1 for Windows. I don’t know if it’s documented, but it’s certainly something to be aware of, as I don’t believe the behaviour is what most users might expect.
Normally if you start WAS from a console window using the startServer.bat script, WebSphere will set its ‘java.library.path’ setting from the PATH setting in the console window. (The java.library.path setting is used by JNI, the Java Native Interface.) However, if WAS is installed as a Windows service, its java.library.path setting will not reflect any changes to the PATH made in the console window.
I am not sure if the CLASSPATH variable behaves the same way or not.