Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Windows: Sun Java Application Display Problems

Problem:
Java applications under Windows 2000 would only display blank windows. Even the Sun Java Control Panel was just a blank box. No tabs, no text, no controls, nothing!

Solution:
Updated video drivers

The Story:
As you can see from the problem listed above, Java applications were giving me fits. Arachnophilia (which I use for text editing) was not working, other Java applications wouldn't work either. However, Azureus (Java bittorrent client) has been working just fine the whole time. Displaying everything properly, etc. Where did the problem lie? I didn't bother with Google this time around. First I verified I had the latest Sun Java JRE installed, next I went straight to java.com and found the root of the problem in no time--"The cause of this problem is an incompatibility between the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and certain video cards."

I currently have an XFX NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 w/ 256MB RAM installed. I checked nvidia.com and found they have a new "Forceware" unified graphics driver out for Windows 2000/XP as of December 9th.
  1. Verify you have the latest Sun Java JRE installed--if not, get it and install it
  2. Downloaded the NVIDIA driver
  3. Uninstalled the old driver from the Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Add/Remove Programs
  4. Restarted the system
  5. Installed the latest NVIDIA graphics drivers
  6. Tested it against the Java Console, Start --> Settings --> Control Panel --> Java: OK
  7. Tested it against Arachnophilia: OK
Back in business... Hope this saves someone, somewhere a little aggravation...

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