Software Deployment

Hi,

I've repackaged Oracle JInitiator v1.3.1.13 as there is a requirement to run an in-house web portal that utilises Oracle Forms 10 in our organisation.

This product (or plugin rather to Internet Explorer) will not run on Windows 7 natively (and the product has been deemed end-of-life by Oracle in an effort to move to a newer iteration built into JRE 6.x) but there is a work-around available to allow it to run correctly.

This unsupported workaround (even though the product is end-of-life) involves replacing a JVM.DLL file (with one found in JRE 6.0.09) in a sub-folder in the [INSTALLDIR] which would allow the web portal to generate the forms successfully (without the browser crashing).

I've performed a snapshot of the product (through WPS 8.0) to incorporate all of the required changes, and to deploy it through MSI technology.

One of the keys captured by the snapshot process includes an 'App Path' key for the javaw.exe executable pointing to the JInitiator directory (as stated below) which I've removed from the snapshot.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\javaw.Exe
Default - C:\Program Files\Oracle\JInitiator 1.3.1.13\bin\javaw.Exe
Path - C:\Program Files\Oracle\JInitiator 1.3.1.13\bin

I've installed the captured MSI on a fresh machine and the web portal has run successfully with the JInitiator plugin.

I took this course of action because JRE 6.x also adds it's own references to the 'App Path' key for the javaw.exe executable (but obviously pointing to the java6 folder) so I deleted the App Path's from the snapshot in an attempt to 'sandbox' the product and for it to not interfere with 6.x - as we are constantly updating JRE.

My understanding of the 'App Path' key is that it's used to specify the paths of specific program files - to allow the application to run without specifying the whole path name i.e. from the Run dialog box - similar to the PATH variable.

Would you think that this would pose a problem with the running of the JInitiator plugin (in other capacities) even after UAT has been completed successfully?

Should I consider DLL Redirection for the product (through .local convension)?

Thanks in advance,

- spirosl