Add Java EE support on machine without admin rights

[tkellerer]

Hello, we have Netbeans IDE 7.1 installed on a work machine, and I don't have admin rights to this, so I can't install Java EE SDK or a server container outside of Netbeans, and can't install a new copy of Netbeans. Is there a way to upgrade Netbeans to support EE without downloading & installing the new version?

You don't need to be a local administrator on the computer in order to install NetBeans.

Just download the "ZIP File" distribution from the NetBeans ( https://netbeans.org/downloads/zip.html ) and unzip it to any directory where you have write access and you are done.

You would still need to download and install the Java EE SDK though. If you have access to any computer where you can install things, you could install it there and then just copy the directories to your other computer (you will have to adjust some of the config files most probably) - I don't use Glassfish, so I don't really know.

If you don't really need Glassfish and just want to develop Web-Applications you could try Tomcat or TomEE. Both can be downloaded as ZIP archives and can be installed by just unzipping those archives.

[tkellerer]

I could not find the ZIP install of Netbeans previously so your link was very helpful.

Yeah, it's pretty "obfuscated" on the download page.

If you go to https://netbeans.org/downloads/ the link is hidden in the paragraph at the bottom where it says:

"NetBeans source code and binary builds without bundled runtimes are also available in zip file" and the words "zip file" are the hyperlink to them.

[Matthias Bläsing]

Hey,

Post by tkellerer

I could not find the ZIP install of Netbeans previously so your link was very helpful.

Yeah, it's pretty "obfuscated" on the download page.
"NetBeans source code and binary builds without bundled runtimes are also available in zip file" and the words "zip file" are the hyperlink to them.

I think this is a bit easyier - on the same page on the top (the
dropdown) choose: "OS Independed ZIP". You will get the netbeans ZIP
"Installation".

If you want to develop for java ee - after/while downloading netbeans go
to https://glassfish.java.net/download.html and download the zip.

After both are expanded, both provide executables:

<glassfish-base>/bin/asadmin start-domain

fires up a fresh installation of glassfish. And

<netbeans-base>/bin/netbeans($|.exe|64.exe)

fire up a netbeans installation.

Both work as "normal" users.

I completely miss the point of the "installers". @work it was always
easier to get the zip distributions up and running than dealing with the
after shocks of "intelligent" installers.

HTH

Matthias

[zabeus]

Hello, we have Netbeans IDE 7.1 installed on a work machine, and I don't have admin rights to this, so I can't install Java EE SDK or a server container outside of Netbeans, and can't install a new copy of Netbeans. Is there a way to upgrade Netbeans to support EE without downloading & installing the new version?

There are similar forum posts that say to use the Tools | Plugins dialog to add this support, but I already have all the plugins in "Java Web and EE" category except SCXML Editor installed.

Specifically, my project is missing the javax.validation.constraints package provided by Java EE 6 used for Entity classes, and a Java EE server (a non-EE server would be fine too). The Plugins screen said that "Glassfish v1, v2.x" is installed, but if I go to Resolve missing server.. screen, it asks me to point to the server location and I have no idea where that is. Does Glassfish have to be downloaded & installed separately?

I notice there's a "Java EE Base" plugin in Netbeans 7.4 installed on another machine. That plugin is apparently not available on this machine. (and Check for Updates doesn't find anything)

[zabeus]

Thanks tkellerer!
I could not find the ZIP install of Netbeans previously so your link was very helpful. I copied the already installed JDK, and had to use the --jdkhome option to Netbeans to point to it. I actually didn't need the EE JDK, because this version of Netbeans now has a "Java Web API EE Web 6 API" library included, and that resolved the missing dependencies. The names of some of the libraries also seem to have changed between versions, and that had to be resolved.
For the application server I pointed NB to a zip install of glassfish as suggested. No configuration was necessary.
Now everything seems to be working.