Extract and Install .jar files to .exe

confuseddotcom

Have spent hours today trying to do this but alas to no avail and am pure fed up of it now.

Any-one in the know care to give me 10 minutes of their time or point me in the right direction for a simplified basic easy-to-follow explanation to get a .jar item to a form (.exe?) that actually works, and doesn't open into a folder with a gazillion "gobbledy-gook" things inside the folder and none of them even open.

Have been looking about and gone through some tutorial thingys I came across online which I usually find very helpful, and they do sound easy and straight-forward on the video, but un-fortunately not after that lol. I have Vista and I have installed IZArc to try and get started somewhere. With instructions I've seen online, the wording in the right-click commands/functions such as Extract to Extract here open from etc are slightly-differently phrased yet they're all so similar and I keep trying to do them slightly differently myself but I'm not getting it right but I always end up coming back to these folders n sub-folders n files that won't open inside the folders.

Like when ya go into any of these programmes winzip or IZArc or whichever, there's a "Field?" or function/option or button or whatever it is lol called ~Extract~ yet, ya still have to go through all the rigmarole of a host of things extracting n zipping n compressing etc., surely it should bloody-well extract when ya press Extract!!! This is 2011, at times hard to believe that it is I know, but it is!

Your help would be very much appreciated, I'm sure I'm nearly there/there-abouts it can't be that difficult lol?! But a few steps of instructions telling me exactly how to get it working lol would be really good. Thanks.

James G

Could you go into more depth on what you're actually trying to do? I didn't understand that part of your post at all.
If you're trying to run the jar, you should be using 'java -jar filename.jar'.

confuseddotcom

I just want easy-to-follow instructions on how to get a .jar item I downloaded from a website into a working format. Pretty self-explanatory request I had thought! (Apologies for round-about post I was just trying to describe what I'm coming up against and what it turns out as. )

I have installed a programme called IZArc to try do so if that is suitable/appropriate?

James G

So you're trying to run it? I mentioned in the previous post how to do that. You could also read this guide: http://www.ehow.com/how_5021615_execute-jar-file.html

bonzodog2

A JAR file is a compressed archive for a Java application. to keep all the bits needed in the one place. While you can open them with file archivers, there isn't much point for most people. You can run them from the command line like this:

java -jar myjarfile.jar

assuming you have java installed and the working directory of the command line contains the myjarfile.jar

There is no .exe file to find.

confuseddotcom

I occasionally get error messages something to the the effect of Run-time environment error when I start up laptop so I hadn't expected Java to work anyway, but re-installed Java programme anyway and did try open .jar item with Java and message I get is;

Java Virtual Machine Launcher

Failed to load Main-Class manifest attribute from
C:\Users\Myname\Documents\Downoads\App'sname.jar

James G

confuseddotcom wrote: »

I occasionally get error messages something to the the effect of Run-time environment error when I start up laptop so I hadn't expected Java to work anyway, but re-installed Java programme anyway and did try open .jar item with Java and message I get is;

Java Virtual Machine Launcher

Failed to load Main-Class manifest attribute from
C:\Users\Myname\Documents\Downoads\App'sname.jar

Are you sure the jar is supposed to be run as an application? If so, you'll have to specify the Main class yourself, considering it isn't specified in the manifest. From command line (with java available in your PATH), type:
java -cp.;filename.jar package.MainClassHere
Either that or add it to the manifest.