Hello,
has anyone experiences in installing /configuring
Firexox /Java VM to make launch JVM from Firefox always from **portable**
device (USB- Memorystick), even when drive- No changes?
In which folder Java has to be installed ?
Which entries in Firefox configuration / plugin-management have to be made so
Firefox does'nt launch Java from the host system ?
best regards, Michael
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How Firefox handles loading plugins is explained here:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Plugin_scanning
In this particular case:
Firefox will always try to locate Java plugin but won't load it unless it matches minimum version defined by string pref "plugin.scan.SunJRE". If check fail plugin won't be loaded, however (!) it will ALWAYS be loaded from FirefoxPortable plugins directory.
And this could be used to PA user advantage.
I wrote my idea how to make it work earlier:
https://portableapps.com/node/21946#comment-138122
That covers how it finds and loads the plugin. However, the plugin then uses the local system registry to find the default installed copy of the full JVM.
Sadly, the plugin is still a closed source piece of software, and as such, there is no way we can modify it to look for a Java Portable install.
In other words. Using a Portable copy of Java with Firefox Portable is not currently possible. At all.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
VMware ThinApp (former Thistall) is probably the answer here.
Or rather "would be" since it's a commercial product that's beyond budget of average developer.
No it's not fully portable. Heck, even FirefoxPortable is clearly not fully portable, it reads/writes to registry and in user Application Data directory. Despite that (using registry ect) at least it does run the portable copy for me.
I'm only using it in 2 places (work + home), both with admin priv's.
I tested without java installed and now with local copy (1.6.0.18).
Hey, I thought Java was GPL now? At least that's what I seem to remember hearing about a few years ago...
Java is, but the browser plugin still isn't
Firefox (both installed version and portable version) may use the environment variable "MOZ_PLUGIN_PATH" to search for plugins, so you can:
1) create a new environment variable in your OS using the above-mentioned name and put as value [current plugins folder];[portable java plugins folder]
2) simply create a batch file (.BAT file), using the "set" DOS command to set the above-mentioned environment variable in the same format:
set moz_plugin_path=[current plugins folder];[portable java plugins folder]
and then insert a new line to run Firefox.
3) using the .INI file of the portable firefox version to include the plugins folder of Portable Java.
The [current plugins folder] is the current folder of Firefox Plugins. If you don't know where it is, open firefox, go to Plugins page, search for "default plugin", you can read the full path where the default firefox plugin is placed.
The [portable java plugins folder] is the current folder of plugins used by portable java. It is placed in "Java\bin\new_plugin" folder (Java is the root folder where Portable Java has been installed). If you still have problem, search for file "npjp2.dll", and take note of the related folder where it is placed.
To check if one of the above-mentioned procedure has gone well, open Firefox and you should have two new items inside Plugins page:
"Java Deployment Toolkit" and "Java Platform SE".
Hope this may be useful for all of you.
P.S. If you use the procedure 1, you must logoff Windows and logon Windows again in order to let Windows load the new environment variable.