Best Practice for uninstalling Java from clients

[Magic Hammer]

Hi. I have been trying to find a best solution for uninstalling Java. I have logged a support call with Symantec but they keep giving me the run around and not actually providing me with any solutions but keep asking me to send screen shots etc just to fob me off it seems. They keep saying we need to use the MSI package which we do not have as now you need to buy a license in order to get a MSI package.

We are using Altiris 7.6 and we can install the latest version of java fine but we having issues with uninstalling previous versions. We use the a package with the custom command and use an uninstall string depending on the version we are trying to uninstall. The issue is that we have numerous versions installed out there and the uninstall commands doesn't seem to be working correctly.

Sometimes it will uninstall the software and it will show the task as successful but you can still the software showing as installed on the installed software tab on the Computer object under manage\computers, I check the programs and features on the client to check and I can see that has been removed so i guess it is not cleaning the registry and still picking up tarces of it being installed. Sometimes it will fail straight away when trying to unistall and seems to be hit or miss if it works. I have to run a report monthly showing Java versions and I must keep upto date as possible only ebing a few releases apart.

I am fairly new to Altiris and learning as I go along but got the basics down and I can succesfully install and uninstall all other software, just Java we having issue with. I HATE JAVA!

[Migration User]

This may help...good discussion here:

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/forums/how-are-you-keeping-java-date

And, yes, JAVA is a P A I N.

[BBC]

What we also found is that you will always require 2 things in order to have the information be published properly:

- Reboot the client system for some changes to take effect

- Update the inventory information so that it also gets reflected in the inventory

We usually use the GUID for uninstalls, which is simple to obtain from the client's registry, but also some brief reference in case you don't have it anyway. You will see below that only the ending characters change to reflect minor versions of a JRE release.

1.4.x
{7148F0A8-6813-11D6-A77B-00B0D0142150}
{7148F0A8-6813-11D6-A77B-00B0D0142190}

 

1.5.x
{3248F0A8-6813-11D6-A77B-00B0D0150110}
{3248F0A8-6813-11D6-A77B-00B0D0150110}

 

1.6.x
{3248F0A8-6813-11D6-A77B-00B0D0160030}
{3248F0A8-6813-11D6-A77B-00B0D0160050}

 

1.7.x
{26A24AE4-039D-4CA4-87B4-2F83217015FF}
{26A24AE4-039D-4CA4-87B4-2F83217021FF}

 

1.8.x
{26A24AE4-039D-4CA4-87B4-2F83218045F0}
{26A24AE4-039D-4CA4-87B4-2F83218051F0}

 

Hope this also helps a bit,

-BBC

[Magic Hammer]

Thanks,

I have been using msiexec.exe uninstall command strings from the registery bit it doesn;t always appear to work. it shows as the task completed successfully but when you check on the computer on installed software it stills hows as installed. Investigating further it seems there is still reference to the version in the registry so it seems as if it is not uninstalling all correctly. it only seems to be on some version of Java.

Shame Altiris isn't clever enough to use the unistall programs feature within the OS and uninstall this way. I must say that at my previous company we never had these issues with Java uninstalling using SCCM.

[Magic Hammer]

In the end I ended up creating a task to run a script and I used the uninstall commands from here: http://www.74k.org/java-uninstall-remove-guids-strings

Apparently the reason for some clients still showing as it as installed as when it is claerly not is that the agent hasn't reported back to NS to advise of the change and I have to run this manually to NS from all agents, once this was completed the clients were no longer showing the clients as still having earlier version of Java installed.

All i need to do now is figure out why the software installed report is showing the software installed, so far not impressed with Altiris as consuming more time than it is supposed to be freeing up!