Running a Java Based Windows EXE

HI,

See if this will work...

http://davidbaumgold.com/tutorials/wine-mac/









Carolyn 🙂

If it is java based, the Windows .exe may just be a wrapper around the actual .jar. Java is supposed to be OS-independent. However, I can't tell you how to extract the jar out of the executable.

The executable part may just be so that you can double-click an icon and get it to run the java program in a java console.

Message was edited by: Barney-15E

If it's a Windows EXE file, it's not Java.

If it's a Java executable, then it's not Windows and doesn't require WINE or anything else, it'll just run.

The only place that I can see some sort of confusion is if the Java program is shipped with an EXE to act as a launcher for it (i.e., the EXE runs something ling like this 'java -jar application.jar'). Some Java installers do something like that, but they typically also provide a shell script that does the same thing for you. Otherwise, you merely need to find which jar contains the application and, possibly, specify the class path for any of the other Jar files (e.g., just like any Java program).

For what it's worth, it's also pretty trivial to package up Java applications as OS X application bundles. I've done that several times, actually, for third-party applications.

Generally speaking, the EXE is quite simply (in C code):

{quote}
int main() {
system("java.exe -Xmx=512M -jar ./application.jar -classpath C:/path/to/classes");
}
{quote}


I've never seen an application that ever required the EXE for anything. It's there merely as a convenience (namely, because a BATCH file opens a DOS window and the EXE doesn't).

You need to pull out the .jar file. That should be all that is needed.
[This article may provide some help|http://stackoverflow.com/questions/316701/how-can-i-extract-java-exe-to-ja r]. Or, [maybe this one|http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5347967].

Is this a custom-made in-house app? If so, can you just ask whoever packaged it to just give you the .jar file?

If it was created and compiled for your company for fee, it might not be possible to separate the .jar from the package. [This article discusses .jar to .exe|http://www.excelsior-usa.com/articles/java-to-exe.html], but may be useful in understanding what you have and if it is even possible to convert.

That may work in your favor as he probably didn't use something that compiled. It may just be the wrapper where the jar file will be in the temp directory while it runs.