On the heels of two zero-days vulnerabilities found in Java 1.7, Oracle released Java 1.7u7 today. Being security-conscious, I installed the update, but still wondered why the Java control panel in Windows didn't pick up the update automatically.
It just so happened that after installing the JRE 1.7, for some work project I had to install the JDK 1.5, which came with the JRE 1.5. While installing the JRE was optional, accidentally doing so overwrote the Java control panel of 1.7, effectively disabling automatic updates. In the end, I didn't need the JRE 1.5 for the project, so I uninstalled it and reinstalled 1.7u7.
It is to be noted that the Mac version also placed an updater in the Mac control panel, and that worked well.
Published on August 30, 2012 at 20:53 EDT
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