Java Web Start Guide by Tobias Dezulian Java Web Start technology makes it possible to automatically download and start a Java application by clicking a link in a web browser. This works because the file ending ".jnlp" (MIME-type) is associated with the Java Web Start launcher program ("javaws") which is part of your Java installation. Don't forget to uncheck the checkbox. We do not want to package this file with dbreader-ear-app-client module. Actually you have to run build-jnlp target on dbreader suite. Before that please perform step Set Up Suite. Then you can right click on dbreader project and select Build JNLP Application. Sometimes java applets don't work even when java is properly installed due to a botched file association or an updated version of java that was removed and the uninstall broke association. JNLP update is working only if I run new jnlp file. (I check jnlp state in ControlPanel/Java Control Panel/Java Cache Viewer) On different PC(winxp with java 1.6.17) updating work fine several times, by running app by clicking shortcut, but it fails sometimes without reason. Oracle's Tutorial on Java WebStart; Oracle's tutorial on Applets: A Java applet is a program that runs in a browser. In my opinion, using Java web start is better and easier, but Applets are nice sometimes. An additional headache that arises when working with applets is that different browsers handle applets slightly differently. This deployment Java tutorial describes development and deployment of applets, Java Web Start applications, rich Internet applications, and JAR related tools Using JNLP is the preferred way to deploy an applet, however, you can also deploy your applet without a JNLP file. The JNLP file, which is a special configuration file, instructs Java Web Start to download, cache, and run the Java application. To run applications with Java Web Start, it is enough to have a compatible version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed on the client machi