Paul Krill
Editor at Large

Sun: Java will work well with Vista

news
Oct 16, 20062 mins

Company denies rumors of problems with upcoming Windows operating system

Fending off reports that Java doesn’t jive with the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista OS, Sun Microsystems is saying, Don’t worry, Java Standard Edition 6 will get along with Vista just fine. Java SE 6 is due in November; Vista will be out early in 2007.

“There were various areas where Vista had changed substantially [from] Windows XP that we needed to account for,” said Chet Haase, architect for the Java desktop client group at Sun. One of the more visible issues was with the Vista Aero Glass desktop manager, which provides a translucent graphical effect. The way Microsoft used graphics subsystems clashed with Java. So Java engineers performed a work-around. 

“Some folks have noticed that when they run Java applets in the browser, that Aero and desktop composition would get disabled,” Greg Schechter, software architect for the Windows Presentation Foundation at Microsoft, wrote in a recent blog.

Sun has since addressed the issue, which was attributed  to Java locking the primary buffer, denying Desktop Windows Manager access to the resources needed to draw the desktop, Schechter wrote.

Versions of Java prior to the eighth update of Java SE 5.0 will function with Vista, but they disable the Desktop Windows Manager.

Java SE 6 has received most of Sun’s attention during the Vista beta release time frame, and it is where most of the fixes to the known problems reside, Sun’s Haase wrote in a recent blog.

“We encourage the breadth of the developer ecosystem to target the world’s leading development platform and are glad that the Java community sees the advantages of running applets on Windows Vista,” said Jaye Roxe, Visual Studio group product manager at Microsoft.

Other highlights of Java SE 6 include the ability to mix JavaScript with Java, more desktop APIs, and security enhancements.

Paul Krill

Paul Krill is editor at large at InfoWorld. Paul has been covering computer technology as a news and feature reporter for more than 35 years, including 30 years at InfoWorld. He has specialized in coverage of software development tools and technologies since the 1990s, and he continues to lead InfoWorld’s news coverage of software development platforms including Java and .NET and programming languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, PHP, Python, Ruby, Rust, and Go. Long trusted as a reporter who prioritizes accuracy, integrity, and the best interests of readers, Paul is sought out by technology companies and industry organizations who want to reach InfoWorld’s audience of software developers and other information technology professionals. Paul has won a “Best Technology News Coverage” award from IDG.

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