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How to Uninstall Java with Group Policy Startup Scripts

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Deploying Java can be a real pain! While using this Java Deployment Guide, we recently ran into an issue where an updated version of Java would not install through Group Policy. What we needed was an automated way to uninstall Java regardless of the version.

Uninstall Java

 

A quick search of Google turned up numerous results with the same issue.  We found that we were able to correct the issue with JavaRa when ran manually. To have three people download and run JavaRa on 1500 workstations was out of the question though.  I knew there had to be a way to fix it and I was fortunate enough to find a script which automated the removal process for any Java version. The script can be found at the very bottom of this article.

This script solved the problem of getting the old version of Java off of the computer. Because the policy had already applied though, machines were still not installing the new version of Java.  That was quickly remedied by adding the following line onto the batch file.

“\\server\software\jre1.7.0_25\jre1.7.0_25.msi” /passive /norestart

As a note, you can also remove the stuck Application GPO by using the tool MSIManger. That tool can be found under the Active Directory/Group Policy section on this page.

02

This left one final obstacle, how do I get this file to run on the computers that need it without the necessity of my staff going around to log in to each one individually?  We decided to use a startup script that we distributed to all of our computers.  This also meant we had to add one final line to the startup script so the machine would automatically reboot once the java install was complete.

shutdown /r /t 0

We have since deployed Java 7 Update 40 and haven’t had any additional errors.

13 thoughts on “How to Uninstall Java with Group Policy Startup Scripts”

  1. OMG guys, you use the hardest way with so many strings of code.
    I’am used this code when upgrading Java over my 350 workstations, it’s easy to understand, simple and universal for any version of java, you dont need kilometers of uniq install ID’s
    it works on computer shutdown or reboot, deletes ony version of java, writedown to log and on computer startup installs a latest version by GPO. and it has a foolproof mechanism, if script find log file it exits prevents deleting new version. script calls deletion of every version twice because some of my users have installed two versions of java( i know it’s sounds crazy 🙂 )

    here the script:
    if not exist c:\logs mkdir c:\logs
    set log=c:\logs\java_uninstall.log
    if exist %log% exit

    taskkill /F /IM iexplorer.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM iexplore.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM firefox.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM opera.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM chrome.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM jusched.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM jp2launcher.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM java.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM javaw.exe >> %log%
    taskkill /F /IM jqs.exe >> %log%

    wmic product where “name like ‘Java 6%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java 6%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java 7%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java 7%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java 8%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java 8%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java(TM) 6%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java(TM) 6%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java(TM) 7%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java(TM) 7%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java(TM) 8%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘Java(TM) 8%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘J2SE Runtime Environment%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%
    wmic product where “name like ‘J2SE Runtime Environment%%'” call uninstall /nointeractive >> %log%

    Reply

  2. I know this post is a bit old but I do have an issue. This is great if you are going to restart all of your computers immediately after the install. Problem I see is, if you need to leave this policy intact for any length of time, every time your computers boot up, the installer would run again and again. Am I missing something?

    Reply

    • You could handle this a few ways. First, you could modify the script to create a text file in the root of C when it is finished. You could then use an if statement to check for that file.

      You could also use Group Policy Preferences to deploy a registry edit. The registry edit would add this script to the run once startup list and would be set to apply once.

      Reply

  6. You could probably shorten and future-proof the script a bit using something like this
    reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall | findstr 26A24AE4-039D-4CA4-87B4-2F832170 >> “%temp%\dynamic.txt”
    reg query HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall | findstr 26A24AE4-039D-4CA4-87B4-2F864170 >> “%temp%\dynamic.txt”
    for /f “delims=” %%a in (“%temp%\dynamic.txt”) do MsiExec.exe /uninstall %%a /passive /norestart

    Now I didn’t add all the guids because I’m lazy atm but they seem to follow a set pattern and match up to the last few characters so this should work reliably.

    Reply

      • Hi Joseph, here’s the vbs script that I use to uninstall any JRE 7 version before proceding with the installation part. Hope it helps someone.

        x64 installation on 64 bits or x86 installation on a 32 bits system:

        On Error Resume Next
        Dim strSearchFor
        Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
        strSearchFor = “Java 7”
        strComputer = “.”
        Set WshShell = CreateObject(“wscript.Shell”)
        Set oReg=GetObject(“winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” &_
        strComputer & “\root\default:StdRegProv”)
        strKeyPath = “SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall”
        oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, arrSubKeys
        For Each subkey In arrSubKeys
        strDisplayName = WshShell.RegRead (“HKLM\” & strKeyPath & “\” & subkey & “\DisplayName”)
        If InStr(1, strDisplayName, strSearchFor) > 0 then
        WshShell.Run “msiexec.exe /norestart /X ” & SubKey & ” /qn”, 7, True
        Else
        End If
        Next

        x86 installation on a 64 bits system:

        On Error Resume Next
        Dim strSearchFor
        Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
        strSearchFor = “Java 7”
        strComputer = “.”
        Set WshShell = CreateObject(“wscript.Shell”)
        Set oReg=GetObject(“winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” &_
        strComputer & “\root\default:StdRegProv”)
        strKeyPath = “SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall”
        oReg.EnumKey HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, strKeyPath, arrSubKeys
        For Each subkey In arrSubKeys
        strDisplayName = WshShell.RegRead (“HKLM\” & strKeyPath & “\” & subkey & “\DisplayName”)
        If InStr(1, strDisplayName, strSearchFor) > 0 then
        WshShell.Run “msiexec.exe /norestart /X ” & SubKey & ” /qn”, 7, True
        Else
        End If
        Next

        Reply

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