Spring/Java error: namespace element 'annotation-config' … on JDK 1.5 and higher

Question

I have Spring/Java App that is compiled with Compiler compliance level 1.5.

I have a new Linux setup where I downloaded Apache Tomcat 8.0.8<

Answer 1

I happen to be another unfortunate user of a very old project (developed in 2008!) which is still using Spring 2.5. And it is not a Maven project either, so upgrading to later versions of Spring was taking a long time with dependencies failing and giving build errors. I downgraded tomcat JRE to 1.7 and it worked fine.

Just documenting how to do that in eclipse in case someone needs help:

1. If you do not already have Java 7, download JDK 7 and install it somewhere like C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_71

2. Then go to eclipse and double click on Servers > Tomcat vX.Y server

3. Click on Runtime Environment, then Installed JREs

4. Then Add > Standard VM and click Next. You see a window like this:

   

5. Click on Directory... and browse to the folder where you installed the JDK (i.e. C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.7.0_71. JDK is fine, no need for JRE). Click Finish.

6. Then make sure to select the JRE for Java 7 and you are all set.