Made a Script to Uninstall All Older Versions of Java and Install Latest Java 8_xx

[Yeo695]

Due to the recent changes to Java deployment, to be exact

 

"Staring with Java 8 Update 20, Oracle’s Java installers will no longer automatically remove previous versions of Java 8 Update X during a silent installation."

I've been looking into all possibilities to deploy this via .bat file upon start up with Group Policy. I don't have SCCM and I've preferred to stick with GP. As of now if the run time for this script is to long you can always take out chunks like "wmic product where "name like 'JavaFX%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive" if you know none of your computers have Java FX. But it will uninstall all older versions from Java 6 to 8 including FX and J2SE. It's also easy to update for when the next update of Java comes out, all you have to do is change the path under "::Check Version here" and "::Install Latest Version here". It's not 100% fool proof though, if older versions of Java are installed along side the current version it will not uninstall older version. Anyways, Enjoy

 

 

 

@ECHO OFFcls
TITLE Updating Java


::Check Current Version here
IF EXIST "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_31" goto END


::Uninstall Older Versions here if Current Version is not installed
wmic product where "name like 'Java 7%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive
wmic product where "name like 'Java 8%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive
wmic product where "name like 'JavaFX%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive
wmic product where "name like 'Java(TM) 7%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive
wmic product where "name like 'Java(tm) 6%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive
wmic product where "name like 'Java(tm) 8%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive
wmic product where "name like 'J2SE Runtime Environment%%'" call uninstall /nointeractive


::Install Current Version here
msiexec.exe /i [b]FileLocation[/b]\jre1.8.0_31.msi
goto END


:END
exit

[Arthur]

Using "wmic product" is a bad idea. Check your event logs and you'll see why.

[Yeo695]

Using "wmic product" is a bad idea. Check your event logs and you'll see why.

 

 

I've checked my event logs and found nothing that stuck out. Any reason why I shouldn't use wmic_product? I've tested on about 30+ XP and 7 machines both 64 and 32 and various older versions of 6, 7 and 8 and all seem to be perfectly fine. I will admit though, it is a fairly slow script to run.

[Arthur]

The following article explains why.

 

https://sdmsoftware.com/group-policy-blog/wmi/why-win32_product-is-bad-news/

 

Currently on my phone, otherwise I would post a longer reply.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Arthur

[Yeo695]

The following article explains why.

 

https://sdmsoftware.com/group-policy-blog/wmi/why-win32_product-is-bad-news/

 

Currently on my phone, otherwise I would post a few more links.

 

 

 

I now see the issue and that explains the delay. This It's triggering previously installed .msi in order to create a query but it's not really doing anything with them beside triggering "repair"

 

Any suggestions on a work around or other method?

[Gatt]

Fortunately, I'm using SCCM, so I can just set the "supersedence" flag in the Application properties.

You select the application that you want replace, and when you deploy the new one, the old one is automatically uninstalled

 

Just done this to replace Update 25 with Update 31

[Arthur]

Any suggestions on a work around or other method?

Since you don't have SCCM there are a couple of things you could do.

 

1. Use the Remove-MSIApplications and Execute-MSI functions included with the PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit to create a script that does the exact same thing as your batch file.
    
   I have uploaded an example for Java here if you want to give it a try?
    
    
   
2. Write your own batch file / script that queries the registry for the software you want to uninstall. Specifically these keys...
    
   

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

   
   

Edited February 2, 2015 by Arthur