Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Whilst testing Java 6 update 12, our application guys have pointed out that we need to disable the next gen plugin so that our Oracle Financials Based finance system will still work as expected.

So I rolled out the MSI as per previous versions we've used (10 & 7), however, the default for the option above is "Enabled".

So I then used group preferences to force the reg key to "0" which makes the tick disappear:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Plug-in\1.6.0_12] "UseNewJavaPlugin"=dword:00000000

Unfortunately all this does is remove the tick - none of the functionality is changed by doing this.

Next, I discovered that each time you click "OK" or "Apply" in the Java control panel, a secondary utility is launched to actually update the settings.

This utility is "SSVAGENT.EXE".

This also populates the correct keys on the user side of the registry if there are any issues there, so really it's pretty essential to run it as a user if you're setting anything directly in policy (i.e. Avoiding manually using the Java Control Panel).

So the final fix was to create a group policy entry for the machine side which runs the "ssvagent.exe" for each user who logs in - this was within the same policy that rolls the software out, keeping it all neat and tidy.

Don't be tempted to put it in the user side, or you'll fall foul of UAC on Vista and Windows 7 (XP Doesn't care though).

Have I missed something here or is this the simplest way to do it?

I'm guessing that because ssv agent kicks off each time the Java control panel is used, this problem doesn't affect normal installs - only centralised AD deployments?

Thanks,

Nick Cole
MISD
University of Cambridge