I run the following command to create a native bundle for a .jar file:
javapackager.exe -deploy -native image -srcfiles <files> -appclass <class> -outdir out -outfile test
Using Java 8u171/172 the bundles/AppName/ folder (containing the .exe for starting the Java application and some other stuff) contains the following DLL files:
api-ms-win-core-console-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-datetime-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-debug-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-errorhandling-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-file-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-file-l1-2-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-file-l2-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-handle-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-heap-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-interlocked-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-libraryloader-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-localization-l1-2-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-memory-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-namedpipe-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-processenvironment-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-processthreads-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-processthreads-l1-1-1.dll
api-ms-win-core-profile-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-rtlsupport-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-string-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-synch-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-synch-l1-2-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-sysinfo-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-timezone-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-core-util-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-conio-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-convert-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-environment-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-filesystem-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-heap-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-locale-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-math-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-multibyte-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-private-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-process-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-stdio-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-string-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-time-l1-1-0.dll
api-ms-win-crt-utility-l1-1-0.dll
msvcp140.dll
msvcr100.dll
packager.dll
ucrtbase.dll
vcruntime140.dll
Most of these seem to be also present in the runtime/bin/ subfolder.
In contrast to that, running the same javapackager command with Java 8u161 only results in the following DLL files being included (again, in addition to the .exe and other stuff):
msvcp140.dll
packager.dll
vcruntime140.dll
I think 8u161 is actually missing the msvcr100.dll (as per this bug), but otherwise it seems a lot more reasonable.
Do I really need all those api-ms-win-* DLLs in the bundle folder? Mind you they are still available in the runtime/bin/ folder for the included JRE to use, but somehow I can't imagine they are necessary for initial execution of the AppName.exe.
I found this OpenJDK commit which seems to reflect this change. It fixes the mentioned issue in 8u161 and adding the api-ms-win-* DLLs seems deliberate. I'm still not convinced that all of them are required though, although I have no good reason for it other than that it seems weird. The application appears to run fine without them, but of course I can't be sure that this will be the case in any situation.