diff --git a/jpype/_core.py b/jpype/_core.py
index 9c7945ed7..5ea7850bf 100644
--- a/jpype/_core.py
+++ b/jpype/_core.py
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ def _handleClassPath(
             out.extend(glob.glob(pth + '.jar'))
         else:
             out.append(pth)
-    return out
+    return _classpath._SEP.join(out)
 
 
 _JVM_started = False
@@ -238,6 +238,7 @@ def startJVM(
         classpath = _classpath.getClassPath()
 
     # Handle strings and list of strings.
+    extra_jvm_args = ()
     if classpath:
         extra_jvm_args += (f'-Djava.class.path={_handleClassPath(classpath)}', )
 
@@ -273,20 +274,20 @@ def startJVM(
                 raise RuntimeError(f"{jvmpath} is older than required Java version{version}") from ex
         raise
 
-    """Prior versions of JPype used the jvmargs to setup the class paths via 
-    JNI (Java Native Interface) option strings:
-    i.e -Djava.class.path=... 
-    See: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jni/spec/invocation.html
-    
-    Unfortunately, unicode is unsupported by this interface on windows, since
-    windows uses wide-byte (16bit) character encoding.
-    See: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20052455/jni-start-jvm-with-unicode-support
-
-    To resolve this issue we add the classpath after initialization since jpype
-    itself supports unicode class paths.
-    """
-    for cp in _handleClassPath(classpath):
-        addClassPath(Path.cwd() / Path(cp).resolve())
+#    """Prior versions of JPype used the jvmargs to setup the class paths via 
+#    JNI (Java Native Interface) option strings:
+#    i.e -Djava.class.path=... 
+#    See: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/technotes/guides/jni/spec/invocation.html
+#    
+#    Unfortunately, unicode is unsupported by this interface on windows, since
+#    windows uses wide-byte (16bit) character encoding.
+#    See: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20052455/jni-start-jvm-with-unicode-support
+#
+#    To resolve this issue we add the classpath after initialization since jpype
+#    itself supports unicode class paths.
+#    """
+#    for cp in _handleClassPath(classpath):
+#        addClassPath(Path.cwd() / Path(cp).resolve())
 
 
 def initializeResources():