This is written primarily to help my students with specific assignments, but I've put it here in the hope that it will help others, too.
Some old versions of the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine apparently will not run applets compiled by other compilers, including jikes. If everything looks right, but your applet will not load, test it in the lab.
To find the version of the JVM on your machine, open a command window and type jview at the command prompt. For example: C:\>jview. The JVM version number appears on the top of the DOS window. The current (Summer, 2005) JVM version is 5.00.3810. If you have an older version, you may have trouble with recent Java applets. Other ways of exploring what Java you have are described here: http://javatester.org/version.html.
If you are running Mozilla's Firefox browser, you can type "about:plugins" in the URL window.
Some of Microsoft's newest operating systems are released with no JVM support at all!. If you are running Windows XP or a newer operating system, you may need to download the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from Sun. You can do that here: http://www.java.com/en/download/download_the_latest.jsp. Be sure you do that from a fast connection!
Here is what Microsoft has to say about JVM support: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/java/.
Here is what Brown has to say about Microsoft's JVM support: [CENSORED].
Back to Brown's home page.