Upgrade JDK and WebStart - big problems

Question

I have been developing (compiling and running) a J2EE application using JDK 1.3.1_02. Now I am trying to upgrade it to Java 1.4.2_03. This process has been very frustrating and left me with a bunch of questions.
The application uses several external JAR libraries (JavaDatePicker, rpValidation) and some J2EE libraries (ejb.jar, jta.jar, oc4jclient.jar, etc...). For the most part, when I examine the manifest of these jars, they say that they were created by java 1.3.
     eg: jta.jar
          "Manifest-Version: 1.0
          Created-By: 1.3.1_02 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)"
QUESTION #1) Do these jar files need to be upgraded to a v1.4? In other words, can I run an application using Java 1.4 if it references a library that was created with Java v1.3?
POTENTIAL ANSWER) I don't think that they need to be upgraded b/c if so then the newer JDev (which ships with jdk 1.4) would contain newer versions.
The application works when I run it from my development environment (JDeveloper 9.0.3.3 with a newly installed JDK 1.4.2_03). However, it does not work when I run it from Java Web Start. The problem comes when it's time to do an RMI lookup on an EJB. At that point the program throws the following exception:
     javax.naming.NamingException: Lookup error: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/http/HttpSessionContext; nested exception is:
          java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/http/HttpSessionContext
This error has never happened before. It only occurs when I changed the descriptor in the jnlp file from <j2se version="1.3"/> to <j2se version="1.4"/>. I know that the class is deployed because I include the jar in the jnlp file.
local.jnlp:
     <resources>
     <j2se version="1.4"/>
     <jar href="client.jar" />
     <jar href="mymt.zip" />
     <!-- Javadatepicker libraries -->
     <jar href="javadatepicker.jar" />
     <jar href="metouia.jar" />
     <jar href="kunststoff.jar" />
     <!-- RM lookup library -->
     <jar href="RMInterfaces.jar" />
     <!-- J2EE libraries -->
     <jar href="ejb.jar" />
     <jar href="oc4jclient.jar" />
     <jar href="jta.jar" />
     <jar href="jaas.jar" />
     <jar href="jms.jar" />
          <jar href="jmxgrinder.jar" />
          <jar href="jmxri.jar" />
          <jar href="jmxtools.jar" />
     <!-- Field Validation Library -->
     <jar href="rpValidation.jar" />
     <extension name="common" href= "localmt.jnlp" />
     </resources>
To further complicate things, I did a search and found that HttpSessionContext is: "Deprecated. As of Java(tm) Servlet API 2.1 for security reasons, with no replacement. This interface will be removed in a future version of this API."
But my code never even calls this class. So I'm guessing that something in one of the libraries calls it. And these libraries must be from the old JDev and thus call old classes. So I upgraded all the j2ee libraries that I bundle in the deployed application with the ones that ship with JDev 9044. However, I still get the same error.
What I don't understand is why it runs in JDev but not after being deployed with JWS ?! What's wrong with my RMI lookup?

Answer 1

After upgrade, previous admin account will not work. You will need to add GUI admin account through the console access. So before starting with upgrade process please make sure you have console access available for the appliance. Command would be :
add-guiadmin [admin] [password]
Syntax Description
admin User name for the GUI account.
password Password for the GUI account.
Usage Guidelines
If you do not set up a GUI account using the add-guiadmin command, then there is no way to access the ACS SE other than through the CLI administrator account and a serial connection. After initial installation of the ACS SE, add a web GUI account using this command.