M$ hate Java and want it to die (or kill it).
See
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles...19hnjavaup.xml for a good discussion of the situation and Microsoft's reasons.
"We will phase it out, but at this point we want to make sure people can have it on demand," Kasiviswanathan said.
The first time XP users try to view a Web site or use an application that requires a JVM, they will get a prompt to download Microsoft's JVM from its Web site, he said. At that point, they can opt to skip that download and choose another JVM instead.
"..Java supporters said the extra steps to download the 5MB program and get it to run safely on a computer could eventually hinder consumers and developers from supporting Java moving forward.
"It's not something the average consumer should have to do," Shikiar said. "Also, from a fairness standpoint, if I'm a developer I need to know what I can develop for."
Very very few 56K dialup users will spend 1-2 hours and per-minute dialup charges to download the JVM "on demand". They'll just skip that site and move to a non-Java site. If .NET takes hold and site developers take advantage, users will be told that they require XP to view the page.
Bingo! Another XP copy sold. You have to admire their cheek!
Pick it the M$ JVM (5.5Mb) up from
http://www.microsoft.com/java/vm/dl_vm40.htm
You can't uninstall it....
Read the EULA at
http://www.microsoft.com/java/vm/vmeula40.htm
and read M$'s ingenuous "explanation" of why it isn't included in XP at
http://www.microsoft.com/java/issues/openletter.htm
A 5.5 Mb download is a pretty expensive call for those of us
who connect overs POTS at 56K on a per-minute basis (much of the world). And that doesn't factor in downloads that time out at 96% so you have to start all over again. Only the determined succeed.
This JVM conforms to M$'s implementation of Java, departing in a number of aspects from the Sun standard - the cross-platform threat to M$'s dominance is thus limited.
But you can pick up Sun's latest JVM for 95/98/2000/ME/XP/NT 4.0
(also about 5.5MB) at
http://java.sun.com/getjava/download.html
Be sure to read the installation notes at
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/jre/install-windows.html
So you have the choice, use M$'s "proprietary" version of Java
which will integrate more smoothly with Windows and (probably) not stuff up your installation. Or install Sun's version of the Java
standard that they developed which will integrate less tightly and
which Windows is not optimised for (but which should function fine
unless M$ have deliberately coded XP to disadvantage the Sun version).