Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Jave Web Start fans:

We have been using Java Web Start since it's inception to deploy a laboratory management application onto the desktops of folks that use our laboratory .... and it's great, in our experience.

Our software has been deployed to a number of Universities and, as one of the developers of this application, I also have mutiple "instances" of our application installed locally .... running against different databases, for example, on the back end.

JWS seems to do a fine job of keeping all of the applications straight in the cache and when I open up "javaws -veiwer" I see each instance as a separate application, as I should.

On my Windows XP machine, I also have shortcuts installed on both my desktop and on the start menu .... while all instances of our application use the same icon, of the 4 icons that I have for this application, two show up properly and two show up with the generic windows "this is a shortcut" icon but don't seem to be able to find or display the proper icon image. Note: in "javaws -viewer" however, all four icons show up properly so that I know that it is there.

I am running JRE 1.6.0_03 and believe that I've only recently begun to see this behavior. I seem to recall, but can't guarantee, that when I was running JRE 1.5.0_* with it's corresponding version of JWS I was able to see all 4 icons properly on my desktop.

Has anyone else observed this behavior? Does anyone else run multiple "instances" of more-or-less the same JWS application on their desktop to be able to confirm that if you should see N copies of the same application (which are, in fact, actually N different applications that happen to use the same icon) that they see each instance of that icon properly?

Thanks for your inputs,

John