Reading Mauricio's recent blog (http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/3335) prompted me to look at my Java installation.  It has automatically updated to the latest version but I did notice all the older versions of various Java incarnations hogging a fair bit of space (see below – reproduced verbatim from “Add/remove programs” window as I’m not clever enough to paste an image into this message!). 

J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 10        (size 120.00MB)
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 11        (size 120.00MB)
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 6          (size 119.00MB)
J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 Update 9          (size 119.00MB)
Java 2 Runtime Environment, SE v1.4.2_03      (size 136.00MB)
Java(TM) 6 Update 2                                   (Size 111.00MB)
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 6 Update 1  (Size 134.00MB) 

The question is, can I remove any of these?  I have checked the Java website and found the following (http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/5000070400.xml) which basically says “leave them” but then says if you are running out of disk space then you can remove them.   

I’m not desperate for disk space but was wondering:
1) what are the different names (J2SE… vs Java 2 …. Vs Java(TM)….) – are they the same (with revised names) or different parts of the total package?
2) is it appropriate to remove any of the older versions without affecting performance? Any advice appreciated. 

Running Windows XP Pro SP2

Cheers, Tony