Microsoft says Visual J++ complies with Sun's Java By Antone Gonsalves, PC Week Online January 22, 1999 9:58 AM ET Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it has released a service pack for Visual Studio 6.0 that makes Visual J++, the suite's Java development tool, compliant with a court order stemming from Sun Microsystems Inc.'s lawsuit. "We are absolutely in compliance with the preliminary injunction at this point," Lead Product Manager Bill Dunlap said of Visual J++. Service Pack 2 includes a new Java Virtual Machine that supports the Java Native Interface and switches the tool's default development mode from Windows extensions to the language to cross-platform Java, Dunlap said. In addition, if developers choose to add Windows extensions to an application, a message box will warn them that the application will run only on the Windows platform. "There is a change in the user experience," Dunlap said. "But the actual functionality of the tool and the applications that you build are unchanged from before." The service pack is available now on the Microsoft Web site in two versions: one contains only bug fixes and updates to key executables to Visual Studio, while the other also includes debugging libraries for C++ developers. U.S. District Court Judge Ronald Whyte in November handed down a preliminary injunction giving Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., 90 days to conform any product that ships with Java technologies to Sun's standards. Sun (Nasdaq:SUNW) claimed Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) had violated its contract as a Java licensee by not following those standards. The products affected included Internet Explorer 4.0, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0 and Visual J++. Microsoft (MSFT) is at www.microsoft.com. From MAILER-DAEMON@cs.depaul.edu Sat Jan 23 10:49:13 1999