To push Java out through a Group Policy, you’ll need to get the installation as an .msi. Fortunately, the installer that you can download from Java is an executable wrapped around a .msi. We’ll be able to use this to deploy the software.
Tip: Download the Java RE from java.sun.com instead of java.com to get the package without the Yahoo! Toolbar.
The installer from java.sun.com simplifies the matter greatly as no transforms are required and the Yahoo! Toolbar is not installed alongside Java.
Run the Java Runtime Environment installer that you just downloaded and install the software on a machine. This is the simplest means of extracting the .msi file from the installer. After it has been installed, you can find the .msi file in the Application Data folder of the user that just installed the software:
C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Sun\Java\jre1.6.0_11
In this folder you’ll find two files:
- Data1.cab
- jre1.6.0_11.msi
Copy both of these files to your deployment folder.
If you use the Java RE from java.com (not sun.java.com that has the Yahoo! toolbar in it), you will also have a .mst file. This is a transform that you can use to specify different settings during the installation. You can edit this .mst using Orca and apply it when you specify the new installation in the Group Policy.
You can then use the .msi file you’ve acquired and optional .mst (not needed with the .msi I linked to, from my experience) in a typical software deployment through Group Policy.
Good news:
Some good news regarding Java for once! Starting with 1.6.11, Java now uninstalls previous versions upon installation. I always thought this was a terrible fallacy in Java development mentality. Granted that some applications may need older versions of Java, most updates to software fix security issues. Why then, would you want to keep the older, insecure version on your computer? Previous installations took up about 170 MB of space with each instance as well.
Uninstalling previous versions is a step in the right direction for Java.
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it a great acticle on deploying java in a AD.
My question would be:
Assuming you are running a AD authencation required proxy server and the Proxy script PAC file is require to access your proxy. this file exisit on the IE property page however is not able to pick up from the java console, is there a way enable the java proxy script pac setting?
Assume you have 5000 computers and you have hotseating all over the office.
Ben, we used to have a similar problem. The nature of the problem is still unknown to us but what we did was for anyone that had that problem, we would go through and uninstall ALL versions of Java (previous and current) and run a ccleaner on the computer. Then AD software installation of Java would work. So we just assumed that it was a previous installation of Java that got corrupted somehow and wouldn’t allow an upgrade
The issues described above are discussed in this thread:http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?forumID=32&threadID=5341011. I followed the advice which was to disable the java quick start service in the same gpo as the package install – this has been working quite well – installs in just a minute or two where it had been hanging for 1+ hours.