Windows ignores JAVA_HOME: how to set JDK as default?

Question

How do I persuade Windows to use the JDK instead of a JRE?

This question has been asked before, here and elsewhere:

How do I set the default Java installatio

Answer 1

I had Java 7 and 8 installed and I want to redirect to java 7 but the java version in my cmd prompt window shows Java 8.
Added Java 7 bin directory path (C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_10\bin) to PATH variable at the end, but did not work out and shows Java 8. So I changed the Java 7 path to the starting of the path value and it worked.
Opened a new cmd prompt window and checked my java version and now it shows Java 7