Oracle has officially dropped x86 / I586 builds for all platforms back in September 2017 with release of version 9. The version 8 is officially maintained for one year, so there would be no more updates for it after September 2018. Till then everybody should jump to the newest version, which would be 11 at the time. They also adopted rapid release cycle, with a new version every 6 month and probably some LTS version. But the latest isn’t important for this topic.
The disappearance of the Oracle x86 build has at least two consequences. First of all there are no possibility to run Java software on the x86 system anymore. Funny enough I still know some people on the systems like this. Second issue: I use Language Tool for grammar check in the Libre Office, which is a Java-based extension. And one need the Java with the same architecture as the office itself. It isn’t possible to combine x86 office with x64 Java. Therefore, in current situation it wouldn’t be possible for me to use this Java tool in x86 office without a x86 Java. Probably there are some other Java usage scenarios here, portable browser for example, but I don’t know them, and I don’t know if x64 Java version is used in the x64 version of such program.
I see two possibilities here. There is a project on GitHub (ojdkbuild), which make Windows builds of Open JDK from the Red Hat sources, also the x86 ones. It is possible to use this as a basis for x86 portable Java builds. Probably somebody would also like to have a x64 version as an alternative for Oracle based portable version. If JRE is needed, we can probably create it from JDK by deliver only the modules, which Oracle delivered in their JRE. This is now possible, thanks to the new Java module system. Or we simply remove the module part blocks and only left the big combined modules file from JDK.
The other possibility (but we could also consider both variants to be achieved) is to create a x64 portable Libre Office. I know that on this site most people are skeptical about x64 software, but in this case this should be helpful.
I also have some thoughts and questions here. It is possible to extract the Libre Office from the MSI file. The Java builds are distributed as .MSI and .ZIP files. It should be possible to replace the x86 files with x64 ones in the portable app folder. This would be test enough for the usage of the x64 version. I already use portable VLC x64 this way Should I anyway check for some additional leftovers from the x64 version, which are not presented in the x86 version? Is the guerrilla field guide still the best description of the process with all recommended programs?
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We'll address it at a later time. In the next 8 months, a lot could change. A more stable Windows x86 builder could emerge, the % of x64 machines could increase to a point that LibreOffice gets dual mode or two builds, etc.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Thank you for your response. I forget about another source of free Windows JDK build. Zulu delivers alternative for both x86 and x64. It also can be used as a base for portable version, probably as an addition to the build from another project,
I would like to repeat my questions from the last paragraph of my first post. Given that I would like to test some other versions through simple replacement of the binaries of the current portable version with the binaries from an alternative or x64 product, would it help anybody when I would check, if alternatives make more or other changes on my system? Is the guerrilla field guide the best description for such process? For my own purpose it would be enough if alternative would run as a portable replacement. But if this could help on building an alternative or extra version of some portable software, I could do this.
It is 8 months later now. Any further thoughts? Java 11 has been released as the new LTS version with support til September 2023. Java 10 support is already dropped
There's an OpenJDK 64-bit test up here: https://portableapps.com/node/59343
We may just drop regular Java entirely as we never bothered with Java 9 or 10 and no one cared.
We don't currently have any official Java "apps" supported, so this doesn't really affect much other than functionality for LibreOffice's little-used Database feature-set. Apache OpenOffice is the only other released app that uses Java for anything and it's basically abandonware at this point.
In the consumer space, I think this is basically the final death knell of Java apps on Windows.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
For a good read on the subject of who provides Java binaries built from what source: https://blog.joda.org/2018/09/time-to-look-beyond-oracles-jdk.html
Stephen's blog is where I found out about the builds we are using.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I just found it interesting and thought others might too.