New to Java

Not sure if this the right place to ask...

I have previously had Java installed and running on my PC. But now I find it isn't running. In fact, it doesn't show up at all in the Control Panel's add/remove window. Nor in a special uninstall tool I downloaded from microsoft.com. But yet, when I look in the c:\program files\java folder, plenty of files are still there.

And if I try to reinstall Java, an error message says it cannot uninstall the core files. The most common explanation given for that is that there is an old version of Java still installed on the machine.

Given that I had Java running on my PC, I have to wonder what has deactivated it and removed it from the add/remove control panel,but yet has so obviously not uninstalled it properly. I certainly didn't do it. Would that be typical of malware perhaps? I am currently toughening up my security...

Secondly, given that the Java was obviously not uninstalled properly, I need to uninstall it by hand. Would that just be a matter of deleting its folder, or do I have to mess with registry too?

My hope is that if I can uninstall the Java that I had, I may be able to reinstall withou getting the message about can't unzip the core files...