Java 7 JRE Not Detected on Clean Install of Mountain Lion I know there similar questions on how to enable the Java 7 JRE on Mountain Lion when Apple's Java 6 JRE is installed as well.

But I just did a clean install of Mountain Lion, installed Java 7 JRE - not Java 7 JDK - and it is not being detected.

I see the Java icon in System Preferences. But Java applications are still prompting for a Java 6 installation from Mountain Lion. And running "java -version" from the command line also does the same.

Oracle's instructions seem to say that I do not need to do anything further then simply installing the JRE. And online tutorials I read also suggest the same.

Does anyone have an idea why this is?
In Oracle's JRE 7 for Mac installation instructions, it states:


  Installing a JRE from Oracle will not:
  
  
  Update java -version symlinks or add java to your path. 
  Show the installed JRE in the Java Preferences.app 
  
  
  To be able to do the above, 
   you need to install the JDK.


After installing the JDK, go to Applications > Utilities > Java Preferences.app and drag Java SE 7 to the top to indicate that it is preferred.  You may also switch off Java SE 6 entirely without uninstalling it.