No

is it absolutely? if so, it's really a pity.
sorry for post another thread about this problem before i read this one.

I have to disagree, it is not a pity. It keeps you from doing really stupid things and totally messing up your application architecture. There are still plenty of ways left, of course.

Even Sun agrees: if you read about application client containers, jca adapters deployed in them are NOT to be connected to the transaction manager.

If you really need pooled db access in a client, run your client in a micro-jboss with a notx connection manager set up to provide non-transactional pooled connections.