Java SE (Java Platform, Standard Edition)

Hi all

Im new here, and im a sysadmin, not a Java programmer, so bear with me :)

I work at a hospital, and earlier this year, we invested in a Blue Coat proxy for security reasons. But unfortunately, that also give some major problems with Java, since we have to put in the proxy settings manually, which is not really feasible on a 3500+ user network.

I looked around to try and find way to get to set the proxy setting easily on multiple machines, and found the following solution:
Create the "deployment.config" and "deployment.properties" in the c:\windows\sun\java\deployment folder, and put the following lines in:

In the "deployment.config":
deployment.system.config=file\:/C\:/WINDOWS/Sun/Java/Deployment/deployment.properties

In the "deployment.properties":
deployment.console.startup.mode=HIDE
deployment.proxy.type=1
deployment.proxy.http.host=proxy server adress
deployment.proxy.http.port=80
deployment.proxy.https.host=proxy server adress
deployment.proxy.https.port=80
deployment.proxy.ftp.host=proxy server adress
deployment.proxy.ftp.port=80

This solution seemed to work on my test machine with Java 1.6.0_01-b06 BUT then i found out that the bulk of our machines are still running the old 1.4.2_06 version of Java, and they seem to NOT like this solution.

I tested some more, and found that the 1.4.2_06 version use the following lines of code for this:
javaplugin.proxy.usebrowsersettings=false
javaplugin.proxy.settings=http\=proxy server adress\:80;https\=proxy server adress\:80;ftp\=proxy server adress\:80;gopher\=proxy server adress

BUT it will not read it from the "c:\windows\sun\java\deployment\deployment.properties" file, but will only read it from the "c:\documents and settings\username\sun\java\deployment\deployment.properties" file.


So i have 3 big questions about how i can come around this problem:
First of all, can i make a change in the "deployment.properties" file, and add BOTH the syntax for 1.4.2 and for 1.6X, or will those 2 different setups conflict with each other.

And second, are there any way at all to get the 1.4.2 to work on a machine level instead of pr user level. Would be a lot easier if we can just roll out 1 or 2 files pr machine instead of pr user.

And 3rd, if we cant just add the proxy settings by making the "c:\windows\sun\java\deployment\deployment.properties", and have to edit the "c:\documents and settings\username\sun\java\deployment\deployment.properties" file manually, are any of the lines from the 1.4.2X Java version system critical, or can i just delete the file and replace it with a new file with the proxy settings for the 2 different Java versions, since we dont use anything in the file for cache or the like?


Thank you in advance
Janus Nielsen
Denmark