You may be seeing a 32bit vs 64bit jre conflict in the control panel.
On a new HP laptop I have (win7 64bit), I ended up with both the 64bit and 32bit JRE installed, without actually doing anything. Shortly after starting to use the system, I accepted a prompt to update java. Later I noticed that the java version in the control panel was still old, however, the java version in ie8 was the newer version. You can see the version in your browser by browsing to about:plugins (in mozilla, chrome) or:
When I ran the 64bit version of ie8 (normally you are running the 32bit version), and visited the above testjava link, it indicated I had an out of date version and did a
choke, die when I tested it.
The 32bit version was doing the auto-update (via a background process) run from:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
SunJavaUpdateSched "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jusched.exe"
So, it seems like the control panel was showing the 64bit of the jre, which was not auto-updating and the 32bit version of the jre was auto-updating. I did not see any auto-update process for the 64bit version of the jre. I will probably try and un-install the 64-bit version of the jre because my average user does not need this.
I was able to run the 32bit version of the control panel from:
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe
and it did show the Update tab.
fyi: the 64-bit (old) version of the control panel was at:
- C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe
Finding correct
javacpl
did the magic, thanks ;-) – Betlista – 2015-01-25T23:27:28.100After I uninstalled the 64bit JRE, the 32bit control panel shows up normally and the browser plugin seems to work fine also (in the 32bit ie8). I will run with just the 32bit JRE unless I run into something that requires the 64bit JRE (unlikely on a laptop). I will post again here only if I see issues. – Gregor – 2011-07-02T14:10:16.913
3Thanks Gregor for this answer. I can confirm your observations. The question now becomes - with both JREs installed, how can I ensure that both get (automatically) updated? – stmoebius – 2011-07-05T17:01:13.897
1
@stmoebius - Java website implies that there currently is NO support for online installations or automatic updates of 64-bit Java. http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/java_win64bit.xml
– Adam Nofsinger – 2014-01-16T14:41:12.707