In this document, we examine the creation of native (Windows) executables for Eclipse applications (not for Eclipse itself). While we have concentrated on Windows aspects, the equivalent systems should work without any difficulty on Linux. We will eventually test the generation of native Linux executables.

The advantage of compiled Eclipse application executables is that they do not require the JRE, they are self-contained except for the one swt dll. The applications can be distributed in zip format and can be moved around on a machine without requiring changes to the registry (there is no information saved in the Windows registry).

GCC and MinGW:
To compile Java applications to run on Windows, download the MinGW build of GCC/GCJ 3.3 for win32 from http://www.thisiscool.com/gcc_mingw.htm. This build uses a slightly older version of Eclipse (Eclipse 2.0.2) but it worked without any problems on the applications that we tested. This build includes a build of the SWT libraries so that the entire Eclipse application can be compiled. (The Swing libraries have not yet been ported to GCC/GCJ.) Special thanks are due to Mohan Embar and Ranjit Mathew for their work in building this win32 version.

Download pdf Compiling Eclipse Applications for Windows With GCJ/MinGW