Rolling out Java 7 runtime to machnines with Java 6 installed

I did the same thing.  Java 7 only uninstalls 6 using it's built in autoupdate.   I modified the latest fairly functional Java 7 installation package (not upgrade) and pushed it to PC's that had Java 6.  I added a large Java 6 uninstall script from Java J2SE & JRE Mass Uninstallation Script (Bat)   I had it run the uninstall script before it installed 7 and for the most part it worked great.  It took a while to do all 800 PC's.  I did one location or department at a time, at night when the users weren't around.  I didn't have any bad failures.  I even ran it on PC's currently using a Java browser app and it didn't bother the user.  It seemed as long as they didn't close IE, Java would keep working even after it was uninstalled.   I don't know if there is an elegant way of doing it.  What I did worked for me.   Just make sure you completely test it.  

- Joe

Thanks for the response Joe. I went down that road with a similar version of that msi /uninstall {guid} script when I first tried getting all our users onto the latest version of Java 6 and uninstalling all the old versions in the days before Java 7 was even available.

I even tried to 'clean' things up with JavaRa. I never got things to work properly, I was force closing the browser, the whole process would take ages to run, things went wrong if the browser was restarted during the process and I'd end up with too many machines with no or a broken version of Java installed

So what you've said is very interesting. Uninstall all of Java 6 before doing effectively a clean install of Java 7 and it looks like you've even managed to get away with leaving browsers open, something I didn't even consider as being possible!

One question "Java 7 only uninstalls 6 using it's built in autoupdate"; from this I take it that if a user upgrades to Java 7 via the autoupdate process old versions of Java 6 get removed; interesting. I've not seen this as we disable the auto update process with a GPO :-)

Thanks for the ideas. I'll start to create a test package and get testing :-)

Cheers

Spike

One question "Java 7 only uninstalls 6 using it's built in autoupdate"; from this I take it that if a user upgrades to Java 7 via the autoupdate process old versions of Java 6 get removed;

Yes.  We install Java with command line switches so the update service isn't installed on the computers.  /s /v /norestart AUTOUPDATECHECK=0 JAVAUPDATE=0 JU=0   so I had to do the manual update of the client computers.   Java's autoupdate will go out and download 7, then replace version 6 if it is allowed to do it's thing.  I believe you need one of the last versions of 6 to do this.  6u43 or 6u45.  Here's a quote from Oracle:

Does updating from Java 6 to Java 7 remove any previous versions?

Yes, updating to Java 7, using Auto Update or updating through the Java Conntrol Panel, will remove the highest version of Java 6 installed.

- Joe

One way to deal with the uninstallation of JRE6 is to open a Computer Explorer session to a computer with JRE6 installed. Navigate to the Installed Software tab, select "Java Runtime Environment 6", and create an Uninstall Software task and target it to the desired machine(s).

Taking it a step farther, if you're doing Managed Computer Inventory tasks, run an Installed Software report, filter on "Java Runtime Environment 6" and use the list of machines with JRE6 installed to create a Patch Manager Computer Group, and then target the Uninstall Software task to that Patch Manager Computer Group.