Difference between installing an JDK and using the dump

问题

All, I wanted to know what is the difference between installing an JDK using the installer provided by Oracle and using the JDK directory that is created after installation.

Say I installed JDK7u1 using the installer from oracle on a machine M1, at the location: C:\Program Files\Java\JDK7u1

I can copy the JDK7u1 directory (including all it's sub-directories) to another machine M2 into the folder

"D:\JVMs" so the directory looks like : "D:\JVMs\JDK7u1". If I set my JAVA_HOME to "D:\JVMs\JDK7u1" and add the "D:\JVMs\JDK7u1\bin" to path variable.

Is it any different?

If they are not different why are the windows distribution from Oracle does not come with a .zip distribution?

Also, if I already have INSTALLED the JDK6u23 on my machine will installing jdk7 installer cause any problem?

My system information: Windows XP SP3 32 bit machine.

Thanks

回答1:

I've been using "the dump" method for years on all my dev and production machines. The installation adds more capabilities such as java webstart (jnlp), automatic updates etc. All of that are crapware in my humble opinion.

回答2:

I am aware of two differences, at least in Windows environments:

The installer will provide access to Java + Java Plugin (Applet) configuration via Windows System Configuration (I think it's called Settings). Second, it will install the Java Plugin into your browsers, so applets + webstart (JNLP) will work.

In the past,I did never install more than one JDK in parallel. Instead I:

• have a primary JDK installed using the installer. I primarily use it to be able to run Java applications I use (eclipse, Applets, Webstart).
• have different JDKs (Oracle, OpenJDK, IBM) in different versions available on the box as well. I install those JDKs, copy the whole folder to a different location and uninstall it again. In development tools like eclipse I'm able to configure all the JDKs I need, just for testing (development) purposes. Never had any issues with this approach.

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8193008/difference-between-installing-an-jdk-and-using-the-dump