Running java without installing jre?

Question

As asked and answered here, python has a useful way of deployment without installers. Can Java do the same thing?

• Is there any way to run Java's jar file without installing jre?
• Is there a tool something like java2exe (win32), java2bin (linux) or java2app (mac)?

Answer 1

You can use Launch4j for this. Well documented and easy to use. While the resulting program still needs a JRE to run, you don't have to install the JRE on the target system. You can just copy it with your application and tell Launch4j were to find it or just wrap it up with everything else.

Answer 2

For creating native executables, you can use Excelsion Jet, which compiles Java to native code. We used it for a project at work, and we had to perform zero modification to the original source code (which targetted Sun's JDK).