diff --git a/R/pkg/R/client.R b/R/pkg/R/client.R
index 4c87f64e7f..660f086440 100644
--- a/R/pkg/R/client.R
+++ b/R/pkg/R/client.R
@@ -71,15 +71,20 @@ checkJavaVersion <- function() {
 
   # If java is missing from PATH, we get an error in Unix and a warning in Windows
   javaVersionOut <- tryCatch(
-      launchScript(javaBin, "-version", wait = TRUE, stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE),
-                   error = function(e) {
-                     stop("Java version check failed. Please make sure Java is installed",
-                          " and set JAVA_HOME to point to the installation directory.", e)
-                   },
-                   warning = function(w) {
-                     stop("Java version check failed. Please make sure Java is installed",
-                          " and set JAVA_HOME to point to the installation directory.", w)
-                   })
+    if (is_windows()) {
+      # See SPARK-24535
+      system2(javaBin, "-version", wait = TRUE, stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE)
+    } else {
+      launchScript(javaBin, "-version", wait = TRUE, stdout = TRUE, stderr = TRUE)
+    },
+    error = function(e) {
+      stop("Java version check failed. Please make sure Java is installed",
+           " and set JAVA_HOME to point to the installation directory.", e)
+    },
+    warning = function(w) {
+      stop("Java version check failed. Please make sure Java is installed",
+          " and set JAVA_HOME to point to the installation directory.", w)
+    })
   javaVersionFilter <- Filter(
       function(x) {
         grepl(" version", x)
@@ -93,6 +98,7 @@ checkJavaVersion <- function() {
     stop(paste("Java version", sparkJavaVersion, "is required for this package; found version:",
                javaVersionStr))
   }
+  return(javaVersionNum)
 }
 
 launchBackend <- function(args, sparkHome, jars, sparkSubmitOpts, packages) {
diff --git a/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R b/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R
index f7c1663d32..d3a9cbae7d 100644
--- a/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R
+++ b/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R
@@ -167,7 +167,7 @@ sparkR.sparkContext <- function(
     submitOps <- getClientModeSparkSubmitOpts(
         Sys.getenv("SPARKR_SUBMIT_ARGS", "sparkr-shell"),
         sparkEnvirMap)
-    checkJavaVersion()
+    invisible(checkJavaVersion())
     launchBackend(
         args = path,
         sparkHome = sparkHome,
diff --git a/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_basic.R b/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_basic.R
index 823d26f12f..243f5f0298 100644
--- a/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_basic.R
+++ b/R/pkg/inst/tests/testthat/test_basic.R
@@ -18,6 +18,10 @@
 context("basic tests for CRAN")
 
 test_that("create DataFrame from list or data.frame", {
+  tryCatch( checkJavaVersion(),
+            error = function(e) { skip("error on Java check") },
+            warning = function(e) { skip("warning on Java check") } )
+
   sparkR.session(master = sparkRTestMaster, enableHiveSupport = FALSE,
                  sparkConfig = sparkRTestConfig)
 
@@ -50,6 +54,10 @@ test_that("create DataFrame from list or data.frame", {
 })
 
 test_that("spark.glm and predict", {
+  tryCatch( checkJavaVersion(),
+            error = function(e) { skip("error on Java check") },
+            warning = function(e) { skip("warning on Java check") } )
+
   sparkR.session(master = sparkRTestMaster, enableHiveSupport = FALSE,
                  sparkConfig = sparkRTestConfig)