[wpkg-users] Java 7 update issues

[Keith Jones]

Hi gents,

 Sorry about the top down posting. Outlook sucks.

It appears to be a consistent glitch through many of the v7 installers :-( If you're comfortable playing with Orca you can get round this one with a bit of fiddling, says the person who just went through this little gem himself :-)

I'm presuming you're installing via the simple .EXE installer? If not you can probably skip ahead ;-)

 Java's installer effectively extracts an MSI and CAB file then installs from those files. Typically though, it doesn't extract them to %TEMP% it places them in 
"C:\Users\<currentuser>\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\<version>". (Bear in mind that if WPKG is running under LocalSystem credentials, the equivalent path is "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\<version>" or its 64-bit equivalent).
 
 The EXE does do some fiddling to on top of that (ie static installs) but if you can find those files it's often easier to deploy it direct from the MSI. They behave like standard MSI installs so you can add properties to the command line just as with the EXE. When it installs it will ALWAYS upgrade in place but there looks like there's a few properties  in the MSI that can be tweaked to make static installs work outside of the EXE (the EXE probably just passes properties to the MSI anyway). One thing to note that is because of this , the MSI will not install a lower version than currently installed because it assumes it should patch-in-place.

 Anyway...

 Find those files (being careful to match the versions to your EXE deployment). If you open the MSI and look in the custom Action table there's a line saying;

UninstallJRE	0x0062	SystemFolder	rundll32.exe "[bin]\installer.dll",UninstallJREEntryPoint

Change that to 

UninstallJRE	0x0041	installerdll	UninstallJREEntryPoint

...and save the MSI.

 Redeploy JAVA using your new MSI and asking MSIEXEC to repair and re-cache the file. (ie MSIEXEC /qn /fv "<path><to><msi>" worked for me). It should install over the top and leave you with no errors when you uninstall it using MSIEXEC :-)


Essentially that custom action is broken.

a) The [bin] resolves to a path with a slash so you get the illegal double slash in the path.
b) ..and vastly more importantly... installer.dll is never actually installed, it's stored in a binary stream in the MSI so it'd never be there anyway!!!

The change I've suggested above makes it call the copy in the binary stream properly.

I'm surprised Oracle haven't noticed the error. As it stands, installing 7u21 over 7u17 triggers the same dialog because 7u21 tries to automatically uninstall 7u17 via windows installer. I will get round to sending Oracle/Sun a bug report one day :-)
 
 I hope that helps. Actually I hope it makes sense!!!

Keith

PS: Using the MSI's directly helps prevent some other bugs in the EXE showing up too :-)

-----Original Message-----
From: wpkg-users-bounces at lists.wpkg.org [mailto:wpkg-users-bounces at lists.wpkg.org] On Behalf Of Falko Trojahn
Sent: 19 April 2013 09:20
To: Nicolas BRICHE
Cc: wpkg-users at lists.wpkg.org
Subject: Re: [wpkg-users] Java 7 update issues

On Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:06:11 +0200, Nicolas BRICHE <nbriche at ch-peronne.fr>
wrote:

>> 
>> I actually did get a clear window *once*, but don't remember what it
was
>> saying.
>> 
> 
> Yeah, happened to me once or twice too, but for the life of me I can't 
> remember what it was.  I was so relieved to _see_ something that I 
> closed the
damn
> thing
> just to be rid of it.
> 
> Not very professional but hey.

Hi,

just saw the window :)  - in german.

It shows:

RunDLL

Problem when starting C:\Progam Files(x86)\Java\jre7\bin\\installer.dll
The ... module was not found.

I've just set the timout to 120 for this command, so at least the install process doesn't hang.

Regards,
Falko

--
Your's sincerely - Mit freundlichen Grüßen - Reçevez mes salutations distinguées

Falko Trojahn
http://www.trojahn.de

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