Is it possible to get JRE 8 working with KernelEx? I'm trying to get the latest version of Free Col to work,and I'm curious of any work arounds? If Not I could probably get an old version,but I thought I'd at least ask here first.

Yes but you need to properly update KernelEx which is not very straightforward.

https://msfn.org/board/topic/175276-kernelex-unified-topics-links-index-thread/
 

According to this video, it can be done:

 

 

I have figured it out, but I can't figure out how to make it the default system java.

Edit: I know I'm pretty late on this but I'll tell you how to do it.

Here is the post that I found that basically told me how to do it

 

https://msfn.org/board/topic/171337-running-java-apps-with-java-7-and-java-8/

scroll all the way down until you see the KernelEx Auxiliary DLL Updates link and read what he says to do

Here is the link that I got the java 8 from

https://github.com/ojdkbuild/ojdkbuild/releases