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Scott Bussinger
Asked: 2009-05-29 22:19:15 +0800 CST

Can't seem to disable Java Automatic Update

  • 772

I'm just tweaking out my new Windows 7 laptop and wanted to disable the automatic Java updating (and thus kill the silly jusched.exe background process), but I can't seem to get it to actually turn it off.

I found the Java Control Panel applet and found the settings on the Update tab that should control it. I can turn them off, apply them, and close the dialog successfully. But if I just open the dialog backup again right away, I see that the changes weren't actually made. I've tried it numerous times and it just doesn't take. What's up with that?

I also tried to disable the icon in the system tray and got the same effect. Changing the size of the Temporary Internet Files cache work however.

Any ideas? Thanks!

java automatic-updates

9 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Actually this problem is due to the control panel requiring administrator privileges to allow the Java control panel to save your settings (it hasn't been fixed for ages, thanks to Sun Microsystems).

    First, you need to find the Java Control Panel executable, in one of the following locations:

    C:\Program Files\Java\jre[version]\bin\javacpl.exe

    or

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre[version]\bin\javacpl.exe

    The path will differ depending on your system's architecture and which version of Java you have installed. For example, a 32-bit version of Java 7 installed on a 64-bit version of Windows will have it in:

    C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javacpl.exe

    Once you've found the file, right-click it and select "Run as administrator".

    From there, un-check "Check for Updates Automatically" on the Update tab and click OK. You can verify that the setting has been applied by navigating to the same screen as you normally would through the Control Panel.

    You can also check your running processes to see that jusched.exe is no longer running - it was automatically terminated when you clicked OK.

    • 83

  2. You can disable the update using the registry key,

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy\EnableJavaUpdate

    or if your using 64bit Windows

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy\EnableJavaUpdate

    Set to 0 to disable this key.

    The advantage of this method is that it disables it for all users.

    • 35

  3. Just remove the program from starting up in the registry - delete if from

    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
    • 10

  4. On Windows 7 OEM

    On a 64bit system: run C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe with Administrator priveledges

    On 32 bit system: run C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe with Administrator priveledges

    To do this, follow the path in your Windows Explorer browser and Right Click javacpl.exe, then select "Run as Administrator"

    Uncheck the "Check for Updates Automatically" Update feature and click on "Never Check" and you are done.

    • 9

  5. Download Autoruns (live.sysinternals.com/autoruns.exe) from Sysinternals / Microsoft, and uncheck "SunJavaUpdateSched" under the tab "Logon".

    • 7

  6. You can probably do this from System Configuration (Run: msconfig). In the Startup tab uncheck the unwanted service.

    • 1

  7. Here's my scripted install for Java that disables the auto-update component at install time: http://blog.stealthpuppy.com/unattended/unattended-install-sun-jre-16-update-10

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  8. I needed to do this in an enterprise Active Directory environment on a lot of machines. I found quite a bit of posts around the Internet, mostly detailing in various ways changes to registry values EnableJavaUpdate and EnableAutoUpdateCheck in HKLM and HKCU.

    While the former worked, it wasn't what I wanted, because it disabled the Update tab in the Java control panel which I wanted to retain for manual runs. Flipping EnableAutoUpdateCheck to 0 did not work regardless of which hive I put it in. I don't know if there was a change recently in how Java stores it, but that value is not even DWORD typed on my Windows 7 box. It's a binary value, which I tried duplicating and pushing to other workstations but that did not work.

    I ended up simply preventing jusched.exe from running using the following GPO setting:

    Users Config → Policies → Admin Templates → System → Don't run specified Windows applications

    That prevents the update from running automatically, but it retains the ability to manually run it.

    • 1

  9. Warning: It seems the next time you install a newer Java, it turns back on the "check for updates"; at least it did for me going Java 6 update 15 to Java 6 update 16 on Windows 7.

    So for now, the only way I have found to permanently keep disabled "check for updates" is to do scripted installs, such as http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=5198773 or this one:

    blog.stealthpuppy.com/scriptcorner/unattended-install-sun-jre-16-update-10

    There are lots of gotch-ya's to getting check-for-updates to stay disabled for all users, and the best solution seems to be JRE 1.6.0_05 Automatic Update - deployment.properties problems involving deployment.properties file during each install.

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