I'm supporting a windows system (well, unix backend) and one thing we've noticed is that the users have alot of stuff in their path that COULD conflict. We have some users who have no problems but others are plagued. They "hot desk" and it does appear to be machine specific - yet the hardware guys will tell us that the PCs are all running the same version of XP, same spec'd boxes etc. But something is going on! Our app runs on Oracle 8i via the app so I'm expecting that the Oracle paths shown are from other apps they have installed and not ours. The same goes for the java. However could these be causing conflicts and problems? I'd be really grateful for any input thanks Sarah
Generaly it will just make things slower since it searches more. Windows stops looking after the first hit, so it should not generally cause conflicts. It is better to clean it up though.
I see that you have three different versions of Java Runtime installed. Are they in the same order in of the machines? I am suspecting that a DLL with the same name but a different version is being loaded on certain working or misbehaving machines.
That is a good approach. Compare the path on working and non working machines. You may also use MSCONFIG to find and compare the order in which services are being loaded and started. Compare the services’ startup options too. Have fun.