Name: clC74495 Date: 10/15/98


In testing the 1.1.7fcs and the new respin 1.1.7o we have been experiencing
a new problem. Pages that are created with DC3 (and JRE 1.1.7) do not have
their beans displayed in Internet Explorer (assuming the page contains a
WorkBench). After investigating, it appears that changes made to the JDK
are giving Internet Explorer problems when reading serialized objects that
are written by 1.1.7. The attached test case demonstrates the problem. We
will continue to test. So far we see that it worked in 1.1.6 and not in
1.1.7.

TEST CASE:
We have an example that contains a java program and an applet. This was
sent to Marvin Ma. The program creates a serialized version of "TestButton".
The applet attempts to read the serialized file in order to recreate the button.
If the serial file is created under 1.1.6, Internet Explorer can read the file/object
and display it. If the serial file is created under 1.1.7, IE cannot parse the object,
but throws no exceptions.
(Review ID: 40407)
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sheri.good@Eng 1998-11-02
Comments from Licensee based upon information provided in the Evaluation:


Thank you very much for your response, it is very much appreciated to know what is going on and that this problem has been investigated. I'd like to made a plea for fixing this bug if at all possible -- it has broad implications. I think it is very much in both our best interests particularly as it is also impacts JDK1.2.

The problem is that Microsofts Internet Explorer can no longer display any Java Beans if the Beans are created with JDK1.1.7. Both IE 4.x and 5.0 have the problem. This worked great up to and including JDK1.1.6. As you can imagine this is a non-trivial problem, the only option now to use Java Beans in IE is to use the Sun Java Plug-in. Unfortunately this is a 4M download and not an option for many including us. It seems a pity as everything else works perfectly in IE without the plug-in (we know this because we make the most sophisticated Java application on the planet and everything works except this).

In conclusion then, this is the exact point where Sun Microsystems breaks Java Bean compatibility with Microsofts Internet Explorer. As you can imagine this will probably not be the last we will hear about it!

I do understand that this could be viewed as a Microsoft problem but I would urge you to remain compatible with Internet Explorer if at all possible. I don't want to trivialize the issue but it certainly appears fixable; the engineers test described here simply involved a name change to fix the problem -- probably not a long term solution but it works! Because there is already a new JDK1.1.7 release coming soon to address other serialization problems this is the perfect opportunity to get this fixed, Sun engineers are in this codea as we speak!

Thank you very much for anything you can do and for your time on this matter.