Name: yyT116575 Date: 04/13/2001


java version "1.3.0_02"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.3.0_02)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.3.0_02, mixed mode)


  Bug 4416786 should NOT have been closed -- or else should have been
Recharacterized, and opened as an issue of Deficiency in Standard Installed
Runtime Environment configuration.

Please refer to that bug and then read my comments, and forgive the tenor,
because this is really working on my nerve:
   This is NOT user error. There are OVERSIGHTS in Sun's installation program
that leave various choices of Runtime Environment, which are available under
the Java Plug-In Control panel, *unusable* out-of-the-box, for various reasons
and circumstances. For example I installed the J2SDK (J2SE), which includes
the JRE and plugins, for 1.3.0_02, over the web without difficulty, to develop
applets using my local filesystem until it's worth it to move them to a web
server. Initially I specified the use a "JDK 1.3.0" plug-in runtime
environment option, choosable under the Advanced tab of the Java Plug-in
Control Panel. [Eventually I created an "OTHER" Runtime Environment option
using that panel, because the pre-existing choice to use the JDK environment
*COULD NOT FIND a "java.policy" file where one was supposed to be -- (a policy
file that needed to be modified for modifyThreads to allow local applets to run
at all). In creating this new "option" I entered path "c:\jdk1.3.0_2\jre" as
the runtime environment instead -- so that it could find the policy file in its
original c:\jdk1.3.0_2\jre\lib\security\ directory. Maybe not the best choice
-- but --] Whether I used the preexisting choice of Runtime Environment, or my
own hack, neither could find the proxy information...! And the preexisting
choice could not find the security information! What is the point of offering
default browser plug-in choices in a control panel if they *don't work*? If
deficiencies in installed configuration are being addressed, please refer us to
the NEW bug id so we can satisify ourselves. Because control panels which give
users stillborn options (OR incomplete, uninformative instructions) ARE bugs in
most peoples' book, and chasing this stuff down to fix ourselves leaves our
heads spinning (too).

In the first case I described (Sun's predefined RE option, [JDK 1.3.0 in
C:\jdk1.3.0_02], which i selected) the Java console reports:

  User home directory = C:\WINDOWS
Proxy Configuration: no proxy
Warning: default mime table not found:
C:\JDK13~1.0_0\lib\content-types.properties
security properties not found. using defaults.

i.e., it can't find *anything* it's looking for. (And note that I don't intend
to put a common java.policy in C:\windows -- there's a point to having
*separate policies* for *separate* environments -- that's why you've got em --
right?).

And the common error message in both scenarios that i describe is

"Unable to obtain Proxy configuration from Netscape Navigator 4.5 or later -
fall back"

Meaning that it's complaining about not getting Netscape's configuration and
using some default (no proxy, apparently, and fine by me) -- though in the
latter case (user defined environment [OTHER in C:\jdk1.3.0_02\jre] and
modified policy file to address a permissions problem), clicking-through the
annoying modal dialog DOES permit the applet to run -- finally.
(Review ID: 120746)
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