Need a little Java help

Hi guys!
A couple of weeks ago my system gave me a surprise birthday gift of crashing due to a registry error. So thankfully I had my recovery disks so I spun them round and round for 3 hours and recovered the system. Was feeling pretty proud of myself. . .

So off I went to the update spots to bring everything up to date and installing programs that needed to be installed. Went to Sun Systems and grabbed the download for Java 1.5.0.04 and placed it gently on my desktop. Installed it. Thought, well that's that. But when I test my Java version everywhere they tell me that I have only the Microsoft version 1.1.4.

I am having problems opening the Control Panel from start/settings. It takes over a minute for it to load almost like the system can't find it. If I click OK in there it also takes over a minute for it to finish. Just not what I am used to.

Other than getting rid of my pesky Windows ME does anyone have any ides how I can fix the Java thing. Frustrated is my word for the day. Here is a link to my last post http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...612#post994612 .

Should I uninstall M$ Java and install Sun Java?? If so what steps do you recommend that I use.

Thanks in advance.