Updates for J2SE Runtime Environment 5.0 ? Can old updates be REMOVED

i'm on XP Home SP2 and trying to clean up my computer. I recently installed Internet Explorer 7 Beta. Subsequently i received an error message that lead me to download something from the Java website. I'm not sure it was really necessary but i guess i'll keep it.

Browsing through Add/Remove Programs i see two Java programs identical except one is version 6 the other is version 8. Both are 119MB. Can i remove/delete version 6 or do all the updates need to remain installed on my computer?

Thank you,

losamigosdebonsai@yahoo.com

[559 byte] By [Bonsai-Is-A-Good-Boya] at [2007-10-3 3:39:17]