Many ISVs have used plugin/webstart to deploy their applications to the desktops. While plugin/webstart works great for them, they have difficulties to do simple JRE deployment through the browsers on all platforms, especially on Mozilla/Firefox. This is a major obstacle to Java application adoption.

They would like Sun to provide a more consistent application deployment model through across browsers. They would also like Sun to improve the existing deployment model with Internet Explorer.

This RFE covers the above deployment problems by delivering a deployment browser control to provide the following functionalities:

- Ability to detect versions of installed JRE.
- Ability to detect versions of installed Java Plug-in.
- Ability to detect versions of installed Java Web Start.
- Ability to detect the default VM and its version in the browser.
- Ability to detect if there is a running Sun VM and its version in the browser. (Workaround for plugin multi-versioning problem).
- Ability to deploy JRE with custom install option.
- Ability to provide JRE and application deployment support with seamless user experience.

This RFE should be delivered in two forms:

- Deployment ActiveX control for Internet Explorer.
- Deployment NPAPI+ plugin for Mozilla/Firefox.

The object model exposed from the ActiveX control and NPAPI+ plugin would be very similar, so deployers would be able to write the version detection logic in JavaScript in one browser and be able to write a similar script for another browser easily.