Pin Netbeans 6.9 to Windows 7 x64 Taskbar

If you try to pin Netbeans 6.9 to the Windows 7 x64 taskbar and have the x64 JDK running, you get a new icon every time Netbeans runs. This is Netbeans bug 178273. The gist is that the netbeans.exe and nbexec.dll which bootstrap netbeans startup are 32-bit native binaries. Netbeans.exe can’t host the 64-bit Java so it copes by launching a child javaw process with a huge list of arguments.

A possible solution would be to create a shortcut to Javaw with all the arguments for Netbeans and pin that to the Taskbar. Unfortunately, the list of arguments is so large that it isn’t possible to create a shortcut directly to javaw passing everything in. The list gets truncated and the shortcut doesn’t work.

A workable solution is to install the 32-bit JDK and make that the default platform for Netbeans. This works but you have to override the installer which prefers to put Netbeans into the x64 Program Files tree and use the x64 JDK if it is detected.

This does solve the problem but it’s not that pretty. The downside here is you have to maintain a second 32-bit JDK. You can still build applications with the x64 JDK but you have to fiddle around with registering the extra x64 platform in Netbeans and you have to reference the correct platform in each project.

SevenBeans Plug-In Does it Better

SevenBeans is a Netbeans plugin that improves Netbeans Windows 7 taskbar integration. It adds jumplists, icon overlays and taskbar progress bar for background processes in Netbeans such as updating plugins. It fixes the taskbar integration whether you use the x64 or the x86 JDK

SevenBeans uses a native J7Goodies native DLL for integrating with the Windows 7 taskbar which it extracts  J7G<random-number>.tmp in your Temp directory and dynamically loads. If you are using AppLocker DLL rules, you need to create a per-user white list for C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Temp\J7G*.tmp

Once SevenBeans is installed, launch Netbeans and then pin icon you have after Netbeans is up and running to the taskbar.

SevenBeans is cool and it is much nicer than dealing with an extra JDK installation that I didn’t want.