After formatting my office workstation to Microsoft Windows XP Professional Service Pack 1, I found that I could not use Java applets. A link led me to this.

The end of the Microsoft Virtual Machine.

In case you’re wondering, the Microsoft Virtual Machine is Microsoft’s version of the Java runtime environment, so your computer can run Java applets (and other Java stuff, not to be confused with JavaScript). Examples of Java applets would be chat programs, or other lower-level web applications that don’t have much fancy graphics. (Java has a steep learning curve to coding graphics.) Besides, it would be harder to most to program an IRC client in Macromedia Flash.

I quote the site:

“Microsoft will not be able to address potential security issues, nor will the company be able to make any product enhancements.”

Very funny. The great thing about Java is that each program has a sandbox, or limited area which the program can access, so it doesn’t and can’t mess with your computer. Heck, Java viruses are rare, with only 3 reported! Even then, they would have to be run as a program, not an applet in a browser.

When Java programs do crash, they don’t bring your whole computer down.

Compare that to Microsoft’s solutions. Sure, .NET is fancy and supports many languages, but the company is notoriously trustworthy. I’m betting on a Microsoft .NET Framework patch pretty soon.

Their tagline seems to be:
If it ain’t broke, we’ll make our own version (and break them).

P.S. I am not an ardent supporter of Java, having half a year of headache coding in Java, but I certainly don’t think Microsoft is in any position to imply that Java is a weakness in their effort to trustworthiness. Heck, the Microsoft Virtual Machine may very well be the most secure piece of software to ever come with Windows!

Oh yes, if you want the real thing, you can download it from:
http://www.java.com