WebSphere bad major version at offset=6

Problem:

The error message below showed up while trying to access a Servlet deployed on WebSphere 6.1.

Error 500: bad major version at offset=6 

Resolution:

The web project was set to target runtime of WebSphere Application Server 7.0 which uses JDK 6.0 while WebSphere 6.1 requires JDK 5.0. To resolve the problem, you have one of two options:

• Change the target runtime to WebSphere Application Server 6.1 or
• Follow the following the steps (useful if you don't have WebSphere 6.1 test environment):

1. Open project properties in Rational application developer
2. Change compiler compliance level to 1.5 as shown in figure 1
3. Go to project facets and change Java from 6.0 to 5.0 as shown in figure 2

Figure 1

Figure 2