Downloading Instructions

Announcing the Java/HotJava Alpha2 Technology Release for Microsoft Windows NT

This Alpha2 release supports Intel x86 machines running Windows NT 3.5.

The Alpha2 Technology Release of Java(tm) and HotJava(tm) from Sun Microsystems is now available for downloading.

Java is a new object-oriented programming language developed at Sun Microsystems to address the problems associated with distributing platform-independent code in an insecure and widely distributed network.

HotJava is a prototype of a dynamic, extensible World Wide Web browser that provides the unique feature of "executable content." HotJava brings interactivity to Web pages and showcases many of the capabilities of the Java language.

The primary goal of this alpha release is to demonstrate the concept of executable content (see the Cool Applets page) and to enable WWW software developers to use the Java language to create Java-enabled Web pages

Java and HotJava are available for non-commercial use without a fee (academic, research and internal business purposes). Commercial licensing terms will be announced in coming months.

A version of Java and HotJava for SPARC machines running Solaris 2.3 and above is available now. See Installation for SPARC Solaris. Ports are also underway for Microsoft Windows 95 and MacOS 7.5.

We also maintain several mailing lists for discussions and announcements about Java and HotJava.

Differences between the Windows NT and Solaris Alpha2 Releases

The HotJava Alpha2 Windows NT release is based on the Solaris Alpha2 release except for the following missing features:

Printing has been disabled.
Only 8-bit color is supported.
Sound support is restricted to specific configurations (sound can be disabled on non-supported configurations).

Requirements for Running HotJava/NT

An Intel x86 machine running Windows NT 3.5 (Don't worry, a Windows 95 version is on its way.) Windows NT 3.5 supports long filenames on a FAT partition.
8-bit color. Support for 1,4,16,24-bit color is forthcoming.
A 16-bit SoundBlaster. See the description in the next section for information about how to disable sound for non-supported configurations.

Avoiding System Hangs in HotJava/NT

Sound can hang the system.
The supported HotJava/NT configuration is Windows NT 3.5 and a SoundBlaster 16. If you run HotJava/NT with sound enabled (the default) on any other configuration, the NT operating system will likely hang.
In particular, we've discovered that HotJava with sound enabled will hang any build of Windows NT 3.51. We've tried installing Windows NT 3.5 drivers in Windows NT 3.51 but that didn't work. However, in some cases, installing drivers from Creative Labs in Windows NT 3.51 does work. You can ftp these drivers from java.sun.com; the file is pub/sb_nt.exe.
If you don't have the supported configuration, you can disable sound by setting the environment variable "HOTJAVA_DISABLE_SOUND". E.g. set HOTJAVA_DISABLE_SOUND=true
HotJava/NT deadlock.
There is a fairly major well-understood deadlock condition in this release of HotJava/NT. If HotJava/NT deadlocks, it's likely this is the cause. The deadlock involves applets and the thread that delivers events from Windows. To minimize the occurrence of this deadlock, you should avoid resizing HotJava unnecessarily, especially during the loading of applets. Also, turning off "full-drag" helps. We will be fixing this deadlock in an upcoming release.
To turn off full-drag, go to the ControlPanel and open the Desktop applet. In the "Applications" group box, uncheck "Full Drag".

See Known Bugs in the NT release for a complete list of known HotJava on NT problems.

Downloading HotJava/NT from Outside the Sun Wide Area Network

This Alpha2 release supports only Intel x86 machines running Windows NT 3.5

As a self-extracting archive, the Alpha2 release is just over 3.6 Meg. Extracted, it will take up 11 Meg. Most of that space is taken up by on-line documentation which may also be found under http://java.sun.com/1.0alpha2/.

The simplest way to download the release is to click on this hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86.exe link. This will automatically download a self-extracting archive to your machine which you can then run.

If you prefer, you can also download the release via anonymous ftp from

    java.sun.com (198.70.96.253) in pub/hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86.exe

Don't forget to put ftp in binary mode before downloading!

    $ ftp java.sun.com
    Name (java.sun.com): anonymous
    331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
    Password: user@machine
	<< informational messages <<
    ftp> binary
    200 Type set to I.
    ftp> cd pub
	<< more informational messages <<
    250 CWD command successful.
    ftp> get hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86.exe
    200 PORT command successful.
    150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86.exe
	(3618772 bytes).
    226 Transfer complete.
    local: hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86.exe remote: hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86.exe
    3618772 bytes received in 1e+02 seconds (36 Kbytes/s)
    ftp> quit

Installing and Running HotJava/NT

Once you've donwloaded it, run the self-extracting archive simply by typing its name:

    hotjava-alpha2-nt-x86

This will create a directory hotjava. You may want to delete the self-extracting archive once you run it to conserve disk space.

You can start the HotJava browser two ways:

1. Simply type hotjava\bin\hotjava
-or-

2. Add hotjava\bin to your path and type hotjava

Troubleshooting the Installation

The most common error is when hotjava displays a message of the form:

    Creating directory c:\foo\.hotjava
    c:\foo\.hotjava: No such file or directory

        - or -

    Creating directory c::\foo\.hotjava
    c::\foo\.hotjava: Invalid argument

HotJava is looking for a directory in which to create the .hotjava directory. It first uses the HOME environment variable if it exists. If the HOME environment variable doesn't exist, HotJava concatenates the environment variables HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH and tries to create .hotjava there.

If the resulting directory does not exist, you'll get the first error message - No such file or directory. If the result directory is invalid, e.g. if either HOMEDRIVE or HOMEPATH is set incorrectly, you'll get the second error message - Invalid argument. Simply set HOMEDRIVE to an existing drive and HOMEPATH to an existing directory on that drive, i.e.

    set HOMEDRIVE=c:
    set HOMEPATH=\users\joe

Send your comments or questions to the appropriate mailing list. If you need to communicate directly and privately with the java development team, send mail to java@java.sun.com.