Re: Java and the Microsoft VM

["Timothy S. Mitrovich" <tim.mitrovich@spiredex.com>]

Bill,

It is possible so long as you don't use anything that does not come with the
default version of classes.zip included with MS Java.  I would highly
recommend against this approach however.  When you switch to a different vm
you can run into many problems that you may not have encountered during
development.  The underlying threading implementation can be different,
sockets can be handled differently, etc.

Another problem you'll face is that there can be a wide range in versions of
the MS VM installed on end users' machines.  Some users (who never run
windows update) will have an ancient version of the vm while others will
have the newest; and of course you'll have to deal with every flavor in
between.  Each of these different versions of the VM could exhibit slightly
different behavior in various situations.

While switching VMs is possible, I'd recommend requiring that your end users
install the JRE.  This way you can test your application in the same
environment as your end users.  If you do end up taking the approach of
switching vm's, make sure that whatever bug reporting mechanism you have in
place will report the versoin of the VM a user has installed.  Otherwise
debugging the app will be a royal pain.  :)

Cheers,
--Tim



----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Woodson" <radman@usefulware.com>
To: "List AJUG" <ajug-members@ajug.org>
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2001 9:03 AM
Subject: Java and the Microsoft VM


> Hey All,
>
> I am working on an application that will have to be downloaded.  I am
> writing the app using Sun's JDK for Java 2.  Is it possible to run the
> application without installing the JRE on the users machine.  In other
words
> I would like to use the Microsoft Virtual Machine to execute code I wrote
in
> standard Java and not J++.  Is this possible?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>