Is it safe to uninstall old JAVA updates?

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by Billy T, Apr 19, 2010.

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  1. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I have several Java Updates in the list of programs the Windows uninstaller provides.
    Their are listed like: Java (TM) 6 update 3
    In addition to 3 there is a, 4, 5, 7 and 17 (if my memory is correct)

    I guessed they were programs that made mod to the main Java program and were no longer needed, so with some worry I did uninstall 3, the one fully named above. I was surprised by how long it took and the number of times I was given the opportunity to cease. (More than any other uninstall ever done) Thus my worry increased.

    I don't actually know when I am using Java, but just before doing this uninstall I think I did as I filed my taxes in Brazil via their program and part of its name had "Java" in it.

    What I am hoping for here at sciforums is some reassurance that I can uninstall all other Java updates. I.e. that I am correct in thinking they have modified the main Java program and are not need any more. My fear is that during the uninstall they undid the modifications they made and that is why the uninstall took so long.

    I routinely uninstall all downloaded programs that have extension ".exe" after I have run them. I like to keep useless files out of my hard drive, and think doing this helps. I know very little about computers and now have worried myself with the Java update uninstall as in the list I did not see any extension.
     
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  3. siledre Registered Senior Member

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    the only thing to be concerned about is if you have anything that uses earlier versions of java, I know my work has applications that don't like current versions so you have to work around it but it really isn't a big deal.
     
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  5. soullust Registered Senior Member

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    yes, your java might not work right but it is only java.
     
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  7. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    To be honest I've found no real problems removing the older Java folders. It actually seems when you download a new version, you literally download the whole library which is backwards compatible with previous versions. All registry keys and PATH information is remapped to the new version, so the old versions become redundant.
     
  8. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    I trust your POV (and Java just gave me new up date, No 20) so all the old ones are being removed. More than 500 mega bites of hard drive will be freed up.
     
  9. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    To Stryder (and others). Thanks.

    Apple's "quick time" is taking up 74.6 MB and AFAIK I do not use anything of apple's. What does it do and do you think it ok to remove it too?
     
  10. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm.. recently my FireFox installation has complained about two java updates. It called them unstable and disabled them on its own :/
    I guess they were old installations..
    Anyone else got that?
     
  11. X-Man2 We're under no illusions. Registered Senior Member

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    Yes Enmos I got the exact same Firefox complaint and the 2 Java updates were disabled also.
     
  12. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    What's up with that?
     
  13. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    Yup. Same thing here.
     
  14. coolplay Registered Member

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    same thing here aswell ...

    Wha tI did was ... removing Firefox and Java and reinstalled the last FF version and the last Java .. that did cure my problem with FF aswell.
     
  15. coolplay Registered Member

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    forgot to mention that I did a full registry cleaning after removing FF and Java
     
  16. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    If you try to view a video file in a website that uses the Quicktime format ( .mov extension), it will not work unless you have either Apple's Quicktime installed, or Quicktime Alternative (which you can get here, http://www.free-codecs.com/download/quicktime_alternative.htm ). Quicktime seems to be losing ground, so you might not even notice that you can't play files in that format if you uninstall it. Most don't even mean to get it; it's bundled with Itunes.

    These days, a few hundred megabytes here and there aren't really of much concern to most people. Hard drives are now routinely one terabyte or larger in capacity.
     
  17. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    i don't think so.
    maybe installing the new update without uninstalling the old one.
     
  18. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Certainly seems to be OK. I killed about five old up dates, and after that had no effect, the very last one, which made the version of Java currently in use. Still no noticeable effect.

    In case any real experts are reading, I recently have small box window appear when almost all is loaded in at start up. I.e. the screen is fully populated etc. then box becomes the first open window. (quickly hitting the enter key kills it. If I delay ~5 seconds then I must click on its "close" button to make it go away.)

    It says that "run time error 75 has occurred." I ran chkdisk and RegistryBooster, a program that claims to clean up the registry (what ever that is), and still have the box at turn on.* Not much of a problem to kill it, and "run time error 75" causes no noticeable harm. but I would like to fix it. Any ideas?

    ---------------
    * Both chkdisk & RegisteryBooster found and fixed many errors but still the box come up as first open window.

    BTW company which sold me RegisteryBooster ($29), my first ever separately bought software, wants to sell me "CleanUpMyComputer" software. Any one use it and know if that is worth the money?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 20, 2010
  19. Shadow1 Valued Senior Member

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    ah, i see.
     
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