http://java.sun.com/products/plugin/1.3/docs/intranet.html
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Deploying Java Plug-in with Internet Explorer (IE)
To deploy the Java Plug-in in intranet environments with IE, web page authors must convert the <APPLET> tags in the HTML file to <OBJECT> tags. The actual mapping between the <APPLET> tag and the <OBJECT> tag is specified in the Java Plug-in HTML Specification from Sun Microsystems. Here is an example:
Original APPLET tag:
<APPLET code="XYZApp.class" codebase="html/" align="baseline"
width="200" height="200">
<PARAM NAME="model" VALUE="models/HyaluronicAcid.xyz">
No JDK 1.3 support for APPLET!!
</APPLET>
<PARAM NAME="code" VALUE="XYZApp.class">
<PARAM NAME="codebase" VALUE="html/">
<PARAM NAME="type" VALUE="application/x-java-applet;version=1.3">
<PARAM NAME="model" VALUE="models/HyaluronicAcid.xyz">
No JDK 1.3 support for APPLET!!
</OBJECT>
To deploy Java Plug-in in intranet environments with IE, you need to download and store the Java Plug-in binary file on one of your web servers. Then you need to modify the codebase attribute inside the <OBJECT> tag in the HTML file. For example, if you want to use the Java Plug-in binary file in "http://javaweb.eng/plugin/", then you can specify the codebase attribute as "http://javaweb.eng/plugin/jre-1_3-win.exe#Version=1,3,0,0". Please note the version number in the URL. For Java Plug-in 1.3 (shown in the example), the version number is 1,3,0,0. This version number will change for each release. You are required to change the version number inside the <OBJECT> tag in the HTML file if you want to specify the newest release of Java Plug-in. The file jre-1_3-win.exe is the same binary file that you can download directly from the Java Software web site, and it is digitally signed with a VeriSign digital signature signed by "Sun Microsystems, Inc.". If you are using the Java Plug-in HTML Converter, you can simply change the conversion template file to specify the latest Plug-in version (the CabFileLocation variable) before the conversion. Please consult the README file in the Java Plug-in HTML Converter for information about modifying the conversion template.
Once you implement these changes, when a machine that does not have Java Plug-in installed browses an HTML page with IE, IE will look into your predefined location (http://javaweb.eng/plugin in this case) and download Java Plug-in. Notice that there is no need to download Java Plug-in over the firewall if the web server is inside the intranet, or if your machine is not isolated inside the firewall.