I am deploying an EAR in a WebLogic node with many jars defined in the bootstrap (startWeblogicServer.bat) class-path. The problem is that my ear and the bootstrap contain different versions of the same jars, not only that but certain jars contain extracted third party libraries which also differ in version from the WebLogic bootstrap jars causing all kinds of classpath errors.

I know you can set preferred jars in the EAR application xml but, this can be very tedious to resolve with regards to jars which include extracted third party libraries in terms of understanding all the dependencies..

Is there a correct approach that i need to be taking here? Am i thinking about this in the wrong way? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

So far prefer-web-inf-classes has been recommended but wont work because i'm not deploying a WAR, also prefer-application-packages is what we are currently using but still has the issue described above... Anymore advice out there?? Thanks!