Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Hi,

We are using java applets technology and are very disapointed with backward compatibility since JRE 6 update 10.

So far, we have found two main issues:

1- Applet download from a navigator is now blocked by firewall and we need to reconfigure the firewall.
2- On some machine, we have to disable the disable the Direct3D Pipeline if we want the applet to run properly

This is a big problem for us. It is acceptable to tell our client that they need at least a JRE version (1.4, 1.5, ...) but it we can hardly tell them they cannot just install higher JRE releases.

The work-around to make JRE 6 update 10 work properly is not easy as many users in big companies don't have access to the machine configuration.

The problems are generally known by SUN as they have work-around explained in the release notes.
So, the question is: why releasing a new version when we know this can introduce problems ?

I don't understand why they are not options in the JRE installer to implement the work-around and so assure backward compatibility with older version. We could ask sysadmins to install the JRE with these options.

We are considering to move to another technology as java put us in an awkward situation when a new JRE release arrives.
It's a shame because Java is indeed a vey good language.

I'm pretty sure other people are also concerned about these backward compatibility problems.

Regards,
Jean-Michel