How do I upgrade to jlink (JDK 9+) from Java Web Start (JDK 8) for an auto-updating application?

Question

Java 8 and prior versions have Java Web Start, which auto-updates the application when we change it. Oracle has recommended that users migrate to jlink, as that is the new Orac

Answer 1

I had a similar problem in a past project. We needed to migrate from Webstart to another technology.

The first approach was to install IcedTea. It is directly bundled with the AdoptOpenJDK Project.

But as far as I understood the problem, Java wasn't meant to be installed on the Client side like this anymore and we didn't want problems with all of our customers.

Our solution was then building an own specific Executable, which connects to the server, ask for enviroment settings from the server side, and then download and extracts the JLink Java. So we could use the old technologies and just wrapped it in an Executable.

Last thing done then was redirecting to the download location of the Executable when calling the jnlp-URL.