Software Updater -- really wish you hadn't!

I have tried repeatedly to install Java version 7 on my WinVista system, running Chrome. Constantly get “get default browser error 2” (or maybe a couple of 3’s). I keep getting critical alerts from Avast, and if I hit the update button for Java, I got “error.” I did see your notes about uninstalling 6 before installing 7, which I realized I hadn’t done before when attempting unsuccessfully to install 7, so I uninstalled 6, all of its updates and the remnants of the unsuccessful 7 (which did appear on my programs list in the control panel).

Now I have no java at all.

I googled and everyone is having problems installing java7 on IE, Firefox, Chrome and just about every browser out there. I don’t see an uninstall tool, so I’m assuming there is probably no registry problem? Maybe there is…

Now what do I do? Was I better off with a dangerous 6 than no java at all?

Thanks for any advice!

I googled and everyone is having problems installing java7 on IE, Firefox, Chrome and just about every browser out there. I don't see an uninstall tool, so I'm assuming there is probably no registry problem? Maybe there is...

http://www.java.com/en/download/faq/uninstaller_toolinfo.xml

http://singularlabs.com/software/javara/

Thanks for the suggestions, Pondus.

I had tried to download the Java removal tool before…forgot that. It’s a little unclear on the website, but basically it was telling me that I didn’t have Java and therefore it just routed me to the Java fresh download page. If I go to the Java installation test page on their site, it says I don’t have Java. I tried using JavaRA to remove all remnants. They tell you to download fresh definitions before running the program, which I did for over 12 hours, with the little spinning icon saying it was working on it. Finally just went ahead and ran the program. It told me it had deleted zero items.

Then I attempted to reinstall Java7. Interestingly, it gave me a message that there was an error loading because C:\program files\java\jre7\installer.dll “specified module could not be found.” Note the double backslashes before the dll filename. Is that an error?

Don’t know if that was the problem, but I got the usual getdefaultbrowser error just as before.

I’m going to attempt to just go along without any Java. I need a new computer anyway, so if this doesn’t work, hopefully I can get it installed on a new system.

Thanks again!

Ah, I think I finally fixed the java problem. In my previous travels I was instructed to type “allow:chrome” or something like that (can’t recall what or where I saw this) into the browser and it took me to a page that enabled/disabled various programs. Since Java wasn’t on the list, I figured that was because it wasn’t installed properly.

However, I was just looking around the java site again, and found instructions to go to the java area of the control panel, and there I found an enable box for Chrome. I closed Chrome and reopened, returned to the java test site, and it gave me the “always enable plug in on this site” banner at the top on Chrome, and clicking that allowed java to work. It appears that I’ll have to give permission for each individual site but that’s probably a good thing.

Thanks!