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I'm looking for advice on good options to deploy Java applications on end user systems.

Our end users are not tech savvy experts but casual computer users who can't be expected to figure out directories and version conflicts.

  • Runnable jar is not practical because we need to provide VM parameters. Batch files are not practical because for whatever reason, java.exe is not on the $PATH in a huge amount of Windows system.

  • Webstart is an option, but our users commonly complain that no shortcuts are created (a feature that's apparently broken), every click on the website prompts a new download, and a plethora of other issues make this option seem incredibly unprofessional to the end user.

  • Many of the things one finds when googleing for Java deployments are themselves built with Java, which means they won't run either on a system with a missing or broken Java installation.

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  • If you do not want to spend any money, a popular solution is izpack.

  • If you're looking for a commercially supported solution, there is install4j (Disclaimer: My company develops install4j). The installer is a Java application here as well. However, it is started by a native launcher that can download a JRE bundle from your server on the fly. You can also statically bundle a private JRE. See here for more information on JRE bundles.

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  • Webstart is an option, but our users commonly complain that no shortcuts are created (a feature that's apparently broken), every click on the website prompts a new download, and a plethora of other issues make this option seem incredibly unprofessional to the end user.

Many webstart deployments are quite unprofessional. Make sure any deployment that is showing problems is validated using JaNeLA. For the shortcuts specifically, look into the IntegrationService of the JNLP API for establishing them after launch, with feed-back.

Ultimately though, APIs will have bugs. If you find one in web start, please report it on the bug database (v. broken at the moment, but you have to try).

  • Many of the things one finds when googleing for Java deployments are themselves built with Java, which means they won't run either on a system with a missing or broken Java installation.

As to missing or too low version Java, use deployJava.js to ensure a suitable JRE is present. No ideas on the broken installs.

I doubt you will swing back to JWS for this immediate deployment, but please investigate it according to the ideas outlined above, for future use.

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