old jre 1.3 on windows 8

Question

We have a very old client-server application that uses JRE 1.3, it's network communication is based on sockets and has a desktop client, my boss is asking me to investigate the chance to install it on windows 8. I don´t have a windows 8 at hand, so has someone tried to do such thing? The desktop app is really huge, so upgrading it, is not an option.

How about getting the redistributable ZIP version of JRE and using it explicitly from command line? — Rekin, Mar 07 '13 at 15:04
Is the application not working properly on JRE 1.6+? I thought JRE is backward compatible... Please have a look at this: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4692626/is-jdk-upward-or-backward-compatible — lucian.pantelimon, Mar 07 '13 at 15:05

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 07 '13 at 15:06

1

Java strives to keep very strict backwards compatibility, so I would try to install the latest Oracle Java JRE version on the Windows 8 machine and execute the application on that.

Chances are it will work out of the box.

answered Mar 07 '13 at 15:06

Andrea

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Forgot to say that it uses jnlp for deploying. – OldSchoolThrasher Mar 08 '13 at 15:41

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 07 '13 at 15:32

As Andrea says in another answer, backwards compatibility is very important in Java. However things do get deprecated and potentially eventually removed.

You may want to review the following, lists of things deprecated in the various java versions in case something in there is core to how your application works.

Anyway i will have to test, thanks for the info! – OldSchoolThrasher Mar 08 '13 at 18:33 — OldSchoolThrasher, Mar 08 '13 at 18:33

old jre 1.3 on windows 8

2 Answers2