Separating native JDBC driver JAR from applet JAR - best way?

Question

Since I want to allow the customers/users of my applet to choose their own native JDBC driver to purchase at their site, I don't bundle the JDBC driver into my applet's JAR file. During my testing, here's what I've done:
1. Deployed my applet HTML and JAR files to a web server folder.
2. Extracted my JDBC driver JAR file's contents to that same web server folder.
(My applet HTML contains 2 parameters that allow the applet to use the JDBC driver -- class name and connection string template.)
This works fine, but I'm wondering if I'm using the best techniques.
Questions:
1. Do the contents of the JDBC driver need to be extracted from its JAR file? If not, what do I do, if anything, to allow my applet to "see/find" the driver class within the JAR?
2. If the JDBC JAR file DOES need to have its contents extracted, is there a way to extract them to a central folder somewhere on the web server and have a variety of applets use them? If so, what do I need to do to make my applet "see/find" the file(s) in the central folder?
Possibly looking for this stucture on the web server:
/WebApps/JDBCfiles
/WebApps/MyDbApplet1
/WebApps/MyDbApplet2
/WebApps/MyDbApplet3
Any advice/recommendations? Thanks.

Answer 1

Is it possible for a client application to access a jarred JDBC driver? I'd like to deliver a JDBC driver packed in a jar file, however, it won't work, here is what I am tring to do
try {
     Class.forName("mfg.jdbc.myDriver").newInstance(); //--> throw an exception
m_Connection = DriverManager.getConnection(szURL, props);
catch(Exception e) {/...}
Before class myDriver and other classes from package mfg.jdbc were jarred, a client application used to get the connection just fine, now I get an exception "java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: mfg.jdbc.myDriver"
I am using Java 2 Platform, no problem in running a jarred command like java -jar jarredclass.jar
Any tips and hints would be gratfully received!
Simon