What's the best way to start Java applications on Windows 7?

Question

Requirements

I want to publish a Java GUI application on Windows 7. This application is using the Swing Toolkit and doesn\'t need any native code. The application

Answer 1

Java Web Start - I wouldn't consider distributing an application any other way, these days.

The user does need to have at least J2SE 1.4; if your applications needs a later version, Web Start will automatically download an appropriate JRE.

See the JNLP reference for the tags for desktop integration (shortcut and offline-allowed), and file associations (association). These are only supported in WS 1.5 though.