I just got a Windows Vista laptop and found that the only JDK that will work is 1.6. I also found that there is no classpath variable that I can edit. So I was wondering if and how I can install JOGL in Windows Vista.
I’m not positive on the JDK issue you are seeing. I have a co worker that I believe is using java 1.5 9 (I will check with him when he gets back). Vista does have an editable classpath variable though…
Right click on Computer --> Properties
Click on Advanced SYstem Settings on the upper left, this brings you to the System Properties window and their is an Environment Variables button. In their there is a CLASSPATH option
I would advice not to edit system wide properties or environment variables for jogl. Just unzip the archive for your platform and compile with “-classpath /path/to/jogl.jar;/path/to/gluegen-rt.jar”. To run the compiled file specify “-cp /path/to/jogl.jar -Djava.library.path=/path/to/natives-folder”
What issues have you seen with setting environment variables? Doing so works fine for me; Java Web Start and the Java Plug-In override the settings as needed, and it makes compilation and running much more convenient.
It’s more of a personal preference not to use system wide properties. I consider it more cleaner and forces you to know what you are doing in every step. But maybe it’s just a habbit grown of the fact that I use an IDE for developing and modifying an environment variable forces me to log out and relogin on windows to get it to work (or at least restart the explorer and the IDE).
Especially for beginers I have often seen this problem: they edit the environment variable via Computer -> Properties and then try to compile a class, but it does not work because of classpath issues and they have no idea why. So at work I teach java newbies to only use command line arguments or IDE project settings for this kind of things.
Regarding webstart: does webstart also override the global PATH settings for natives loading?
Yes, it does. This is why the documentation recommends setting environment variables rather than dropping things into jre/lib/ext, which Java Web Start can’t override.