The infrastructure for the plugin and Java Web Start changed dramatically with 1.4.2, and the only mention of the change was in the 1.4.2 Enhancements and Changes doc, which merely refer to RFEs 4523276 and 4723794. No specifics regarding the change were communicated to users, and in some places, the documentation is incorrect.

For example, the 1.4.2 Plugin Developer's Guide still indicates that the location of the properties file is <user.home>\.java\properties_<modified version number> (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/quide/plugin/developer_guide/version.html#property).

Instead, much of the information available in the 1.5.0 Java Deployment Guide regarding the properties file is also applicable to 1.4.2 (http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/guide/deployment/deployment-guide/properties.html#location). However, there is no deployment.config file in 1.4.2 to set the location of the system-level deployment.properties file. In 1.4.2, the location of the system-level deployment.properties file on Windows is <Windows Directory>\Sun\Java\Deployment.