Java 1.7.0_40 and unsigned Applet

Question

On one of my workstation machines (but not on the other) using Java 1.7.0_40 and adding any -D setting (such as -Dmykey=myvalue) to the "Runtime Parameters" of the "Java Runtime Environment Settings" of the "Java Control Panel" will cause the following runtime exception when running unsigned code:

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: appls.XHTMLV9.user.Applet because the class is not signed.
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.newClassNotFoundException(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass0(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.initAppletAdapter(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

In the Java Console I also see the following message which I haven't seen before:

cache: Initialize resource manager: com.sun.deploy.cache.ResourceProviderImpl@d0570e
security:  --- parseCommandLine converted : -Dmykey=myvalue
into:    
[-Dmykey=myvalue]

Running with Java 1.7.0_25 and/or removing the command line flag solves this problem and I have another workstation on which this problem does not reproduce. Any ideas ?

Answer 1

Only secure system properties are allowed. See http://download.java.net/jdk8/docs/technotes/guides/jweb/applet/applet_deployment.html#COMMAND_LINE_ARGS for the details.

Thanks for your question though, it helped me solve my ClassNotFoundException.