I created a program using Java 8(JDK 8), but when I try to run it on a device that isn't mine (so no JDK), it makes me download a JRE.
1) why don't all programs when you download them make you do this? Is it just most programs aren't using Java?
2) how to I create an installation exe to install the JRE and the program. (As of now I'm just running my program as an exe).
Is it just most programs aren't using Java?
Yes, java is a popular programming language but most (desktop) applications are not written in java.
Some programs do also come with a JRE, meaning that it is installed with the program.
how to I create an installation exe to install the JRE and the program.
The exe could try to download the JRE from the API of e.g. OpenJDK, execute it and wait until it finishes, you could bring an installer with you, you could tell the user to install a JDK or you use an installer template that does one of the things for you.
I imagine some Java gurus with experience delivering Java apps on Windows desktops will be able to ace this one. I've always been a Mac/Linux Java developer so this is uncharted territory for me :-/.
I have to write a Java 8 Swing application and install it on a Windows 10 (64-bit) machine. My gameplan is to package the app as an executable JAR and wrap it with Launch4J, so that it looks like a native Windows EXE (.exe file). However its a little bit more complication than that when it comes to the distribution:
There will be the JAR/EXE as mentioned above, lets call it myapp.exe (built from myapp.jar)
The app will output logs to a (local?) directory, myapp.log
The app will load a config file at runtime, myapp.properties
The distribution should also contain the User's Guide, MyApp User Guide.html
Let's assume a Java 8 JRE/JDK is already installed on the machine, so we don't need to worry about installing Java itself.
The installation process must be simple and include:
Removing the old version (and all of its other artifacts such as the log file, config/properties file, user guide, etc) off the machine completely
Installing the new version at either the Windows 10 default location, or allowing the user to specify a different location
Additionally, if at all possible, I'd like the installation process to include:
A requirements check for things like minimum memory and disk space, OS version info/compatibility (i.e. make sure its being installed on Windows 10, etc.)
Provide an easy-to-use wizard such as an MSI that the user can click though
Optionally install shortcuts to the user's Desktop
Given all this, I'm wondering what my options are in the modern Windows 10/Java/Launch4J landscape. Are there tools that will help me script together MSIs quickly, or do I have to write my own in, say, C#/.NET and have that be a separate binary/project? If MSIs aren't an option, what options exist that might hit all my bullets above?
I realize I could just distribute the whole thing as a ZIP, and have the installation process look something like:
Save the ZIP to some place on the user's machine, say, the Desktop
Move the previous app and its artifacts to the trash, manually
Unzip the new ZIP
However that feels janky and I'm looking for something more professional. Any solutions here?
JDK 8 is bundled with a tool called javapackager (formerly javafxpackager) which is part of JavaFX. However, you can use it package java swing application without using JavaFX. This tool can generate an installer file (exe or msi) which contains the application and the Java runtime as well.
Here is an example:
javapackager -deploy -native exe -Bruntime="C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_66\jre" -Bicon=app_icon.ico -BsystemWide=true -BshortcutHint=true -outdir packages -outfile appFile -srcdir dist -srcfiles MyApp.jar;COPYING.txt -appclass somePackage.MainClass -BlicenseFile=COPYING.txt -name appName -title "The application name"
For more information, see adding icon to bundle using javapackager
There is also a new tool called jpackage which is based on javapackager. It is proposed to be released with the next JDK release, JDK 14. Note that javapackager was removed from JDK since version 11 as part of the removal of JavaFX.
See A Brief Example Using the Early Access jpackage Utility
Tools: Some deployment tools information:
Multi-Platform Installers
List of the major MSI installer tools
WiX quick start tips (the open source, free tool with a heavy learning curve)
"Hello WiX - step-by-step in Visual Studio"
"Hello World" - WiX style
Advanced Installer: As stated in a comment above you can use Advanced Installer to install Java applications on Windows and Mac (no Linux support).
Videos: Here are some videos from Advanced Installer (commercial tool) on Java installations:
Hello Java Installer: 1 minute video that shows the basics of installing a Java application
List of Java-related videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/AdvancedInstaller/search?query=java+jre
Tutorial (to read): Package your Java application for Windows and for Mac OS. Java landing page.
Digression: Not Java as such - do have a skim. Auto-updating applications using various deployment technologies: What is the best practice to auto upgrade MSI based application?
Links:
Make Installer of java Application
Installer for Java Web Application
How to create windows installer
How to create a MSI Windows installer for a Java program?
Old: How can I convert my Java program to an .exe file?
I have developed a program using Java SE on Windows 7.
I build this app and it runs well on Windows.
I tried to run on Linux, so it runs but after some steps of:
Removing OpenJDK app.
Install Java JDK from terminal
Run jar file from terminal.
I need to make an installer on Windows - Linux - Mac, which installs JDK package and make the program run by double clicking.
Try using JarSplice. It is a nifty tool for converting Jar files into runnables for different systems. There are lots of tutorials on the internet on how to use it, although it is very well labelled and I found it simple enough to use.
I have a Java program, let's say it's called MyApp.jar
To run it on Linux, I just write a shell script called myapp.sh, which simply runs java -jar MyApp.jar and double click on it. Everything works well.
On Windows 7, I cannot assume that the java command will be in everyone's path (if that's what you call it on Windows), so I have to have a workaround and do something like create a batch script with this in it: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe" -jar MyApp.jar, which is obviously a Bad Solution... and it doesn't work on XP or Vista. It works on most Windows 7 machines though.
My application ships as a .zip file, the user extracts it to a folder MyApp, and then ideally will double click on something to invoke the program. So far it has a .sh script for Linux users to double click on, and a batch script for Windows 7 users (it works in most cases). It creates and consumes files in its own directory (MyApp).
What is the best way to invoke this program in a cross platform way?
Thanks!
As mentioned by biziclop, Java Web Start is commonly used to install/launch/update Java desktop apps.
As far as the JRE goes, it is usually sufficient to use the deployJava.js linked from that page above to ensure minimum necessary JRE is installed, and the elements in the JNLP file to specify any JRE micro-versions that are supported for the app.
Application launch
JWS can install desktop shortcuts and menu items when supported by the OS. Those can be specified in the launch file, or added/removed at run-time using services of the JNLP API.
If you can't deliver Java with your application, it might be a good solution to use JAVA_HOME to start it. It is set on, well... not all but many systems.
Definitly you should not use C:\Program Files (x86)... it is much better to use the environment variable %ProgramFiles%
Java application require a java runtime environment with a certain version to be installed on the target system.
The most convenient way, to my opinion, is to ship all libraries and documentation in a single archive and add start scripts for windows and *nix systems.
You could ship a JRE with your application too but then you'd have to support builds for different platforms...
We have a couple of applications running on Java 5 and would like now to bring in an application based on Java 6. Can both java versions live together under Windows?
Is there any control panel to set the appropriate Java version for different applications, or any other way to set up, what version of Java will be used to run that particular application?
Of course you can use multiple versions of Java under Windows. And different applications can use different Java versions. How is your application started? Usually you will have a batch file where there is something like
java ...
This will search the Java executable using the PATH variable. So if Java 5 is first on the PATH, you will have problems running a Java 6 application. You should then modify the batch file to use a certain Java version e.g. by defining a environment variable JAVA6HOME with the value C:\java\java6 (if Java 6 is installed in this directory) and change the batch file calling
%JAVA6HOME%\bin\java ...
I was appalled at the clumsiness of the CLASSPATH, JAVA_HOME, and PATH ideas, in Windows, to keep track of Java files. I got here, because of multiple JREs, and how to content with it. Without regurgitating information, from a guy much more clever than me, I would rather point to to his article on this issue, which for me, resolves it perfectly.
Article by: Ted Neward: Multiple Java Homes: Giving Java Apps Their Own JRE
With the exponential growth of Java as a server-side development language has come an equivablent
exponential growth in Java development tools, environments, frameworks, and extensions.
Unfortunately, not all of these tools play nicely together under the same Java VM installation. Some
require a Servlet 2.1-compliant environment, some require 2.2. Some only run under JDK 1.2 or above,
some under JDK 1.1 (and no higher). Some require the "com.sun.swing" packages from pre-Swing 1.0
days, others require the "javax.swing" package names.
Worse yet, this problem can be found even within the corporate enterprise, as systems developed using
Java from just six months ago may suddenly "not work" due to the installation of some Java Extension
required by a new (seemingly unrelated) application release. This can complicate deployment of Java
applications across the corporation, and lead customers to wonder precisely why, five years after the
start of the infamous "Installing-this-app-breaks-my-system" woes began with Microsoft's DLL schemes,
we still haven't progressed much beyond that. (In fact, the new .NET initiative actually seeks to solve the
infamous "DLL-Hell" problem just described.)
This paper describes how to configure a Java installation such that a given application receives its own,
private, JRE, allowing multiple Java environments to coexist without driving customers (or system
administrators) insane...
It is absolutely possible to install side-by-side several JRE/JDK versions. Moreover, you don't have to do anything special for that to happen, as Sun is creating a different folder for each (under Program Files).
There is no control panel to check which JRE works for each application. Basically, the JRE that will work would be the first in your PATH environment variable. You can change that, or the JAVA_HOME variable, or create specific cmd/bat files to launch the applications you desire, each with a different JRE in path.
We can install multiple versions of Java Development kits on the same machine using SDKMan.
Some points about SDKMan are as following:
SDKMan is free to use and it is developed by the open source community.
SDKMan is written in bash and it only requires curl and zip/unzip programs to be present on your system.
SDKMan can install around 29 Software Development Kits for the JVM such as Java, Groovy, Scala, Kotlin and Ceylon. Ant, Gradle, Grails, Maven, SBT, Spark, Spring Boot, Vert.x.
We do not need to worry about setting the _HOME and PATH environment variables because SDKMan handles it automatically.
SDKMan can run on any UNIX based platforms such as Mac OSX, Linux, Cygwin, Solaris and FreeBSD and we can install it using following commands:
$ curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
$ source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"
Because SDKMan is written in bash and only requires curl and zip/unzip to be present on your system. You can install SDKMan on windows as well either by first installing Cygwin or Git Bash for Windows environment and then running above commands.
Command sdk list java will give us a list of java versions which we can install using SDKMan.
Installing Java 8
$ sdk install java 8.0.201-oracle
Installing Java 9
$ sdk install java 9.0.4-open
Installing Java 11
$ sdk install java 11.0.2-open
Uninstalling a Java version
In case you want to uninstall any JDK version e.g., 11.0.2-open you can do that as follows:
$ sdk uninstall java 11.0.2-open
Switching current Java version
If you want to activate one version of JDK for all terminals and applications, you can use the command
sdk default java <your-java_version>
Above commands will also update the PATH and JAVA_HOME variables automatically. You can read more on my article How to Install Multiple Versions of Java on the Same Machine.
It should be possible changing setting the JAVA_HOME environment variable differently for specific applications.
When starting from the command line or from a batch script you can use set JAVA_HOME=C:\...\j2dskXXX to change the JAVA_HOME environment.
It is possible that you also need to change the PATH environment variable to use the correct java binary. To do this you can use set PATH=%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%.
I use a simple script when starting JMeter with my own java version
setlocal
set JAVA_HOME="c:\java8"
set PATH=%JAVA_HOME%\bin;%PATH%;
java -version
To have a java "portable"
you can use this method here:
https://www.whitebyte.info/programming/java/how-to-install-a-portable-jdk-in-windows-without-admin-rights
Or use links. While it is rather unpleasant to update the PATH in a running environment, it's easy to recreate a link to a new version of JRE/JDK. So:
install different versions of JDK you want to use
create a link to that folder either by junction or by built-in mklink command
set the PATH to the link
If other version of java is to be used, delete the link, create a new one, PATH/JAVA_HOME/hardcoded scripts remain untouched
Invoking Java with "java -version:1.5", etc. should run with the correct version of Java. (Obviously replace 1.5 with the version you want.)
If Java is properly installed on Windows there are paths to the vm for each version stored in the registry which it uses so you don't need to mess about with environment versions on Windows.
If you use Java Web Start (you can start applications from any URL, even the local file system) it will take care of finding the right version for your application.
Using Java Web Start, you can install multiple JRE, then call what you need.
On win, you can make a .bat file:
1- online version:
<your_JRE_version\bin\javaws.exe> -localfile -J-Djnlp.application.href=<the url of .jnlp file.jnlp> -localfile -J "<path_temp_jnlp_file_.jnlp>"
2- launch from cache:
<your_JRE_version\bin\javaws.exe> -localfile -J "<path_of_your_local_jnlp_file.jnlp>"