The “Break it Down” Blog

Our full review of what the “Consumer JRE” is was covered here in more detail, but to recap, the Consumer JRE is a collection of large changes to how the JRE and Java in general is distributed, installed, structured and run on client computers to create a much nicer end-user experience. Things like faster startup, smaller footprint, install-on-demand and so on.

As was mentioned a while back, the first “Early Access” or Alpha/Beta of these changes would begin trickling out with Java 6 Update 4, but instead it looks like Sun has gotten almost all of the entire Consumer JRE ready for Early Access with this update.

You can download the update here, and the hottest highlights are as follows:

• Enhanced JRE installation experience
  • The Deployment Toolkit takes the guess work out of determining what versions of the JRE end users have installed on their PC. It supplies Java based web applet/application deployers with a simple interface to accomplish Java detection and installation.
  • The Kernel installation mode lets first time Java users run applets and Web Start applications without waiting for the whole JRE download. While the default Kernel installation will work with existing Java applets, application developers have the ability to select libraries that should be installed with the kernel, before the rest of the JRE is installed on the end user’s system.
  • For current users of Java SE, the JRE update mechanism has also been improved, using a patch-in-place mechanism that translates in a faster and more reliable update process (the patch in place mechanism will take effect for end users who upgrade from this update release or later to a new update release). As an added benefit, follow-on update releases will no longer be listed as separate items in the Windows “Add or Remove Programs” dialog.
  • A new Java update download engine provides end users with the convenience of pausing and resuming the JRE download, and relies on a more reliable download mechanism.
• Improved performance and look & feel
  • The Quick Starter feature will prefetch portions of the JRE into memory, substantially decreasing the average JRE cold start-up time (the time that it takes to launch a Java application for the first time after a fresh reboot of a PC).
  • Hardware acceleration support: Java SE 6 Update N introduces a fully hardware accelerated graphics pipeline based on the Microsoft Direct3D 9 API, translating into improved rendering of Swing applications which rely on translucency, gradients, arbitrary transformations, and other more advanced 2D operations.
  • A new cross-platform Swing look & feel, code name Nimbus, provides a nice update over ‘Metal’ and ‘Ocean’.