Creating Java standalone program with Eclipse, 32 vs 64 bit platforms

Question

After reading many related posts on stackoverflow, I still haven't been able to find a solution to my question. If this question has already been asked, please kindly provide the link.

I am new to creating a Java standalone program with GUI in Eclipse. My development platform has 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit JRE, 64-bit JDK and 64-bit Eclipse. The program has to be able to run on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 / JRE.

Will there be any compatibility issues if I run my program on a 32-bit Windows 7/ JRE platform? What kind of GUI plugin for Eclipse do I need to use in order to avoid the potential compatibility issues, if any?

Thank you for you help.

Answer 1

Be sure that a 32 bit JVM will run the application using 32 bit constraints and a 64 bit JVM will run the same application using 64 bit constraints. This is handled automatically and it means that a java application is not tied to the platform over which it is compiled. Hence, it does not make any difference to have a Java application developed and compiled over 32-bit or 64-bit machines. It should be machine-independent; unless you have some native library dependency or the java code is directly being compiled to native code.

There will not be any potential compatibility issues and you DO NOT require any tools (which dont exist by the way) to keep your application safe from such issues. The java platform takes care of the same itself.