Today's adventure... Installing Java
I think I have mentioned before that at work we run an isolated air-gapped network, it's a requirement under a variety of regulatory schemes. Because our network is air-gapped we don't allow the usual corporate laptops on it. We have a set of machines that have a customized build of Windows 7 with the applications that people need to do their job pre-installed and the US Governement Configuration Baselines applied.
Pretty standard stuff really and normally not that big a deal - except we have a number of pieces of equipment that will only work with (almost) literally pre-historic versions of Java. This is where the excitement comes in a couple weeks ago I had a guy call about a machine that was failing to connect to a mission critical application. The description he was giving made it sound like a Java error so I had him check his version. It turned out he was a version up from the last Java version that we know runs successfully on just about everything so I had him uninstall and reinstall the "good" Java.
Problem solved right?
Not so!
Tuesday I came into work and was handed this laptop and told it absolutely refused to connect to the mission critical equipment and can I please fix it?
Sure, that's what we're there for right? Keep people productive so the company keeps making money and I stay employed.
I had like 16 other machines and tasks that needed attention first so I finally got to it at about 5pm last night. I boot it up and go and look at Java first thing. In the control panel the Java Icon is missing but the Java text is there. I click on it and get a message that the control panel cannot be opened because a .dll is missing. Ok, uninstall and reinstall, but that will have to wait until morning.
This morning I start the uninstall and it tells me that I can't uninstall because a .dll is missing. Hmmm, alright I will just reinstall over the top then uninstall and do a clean reinstall. I start the reinstall process and it tells me that the application is already installed, would I like to reinstall? Of course I would you silly twit. Click "Yes". "Unable to install due to a missing .dll"
DAMN IT!!!! It's already been a shitty day, I am coffee deficient and I don't want this turning into an all day affair.
I run Revo uninstaller. It says it can uninstall because MISSING .DLL!, so I go into the advanced search/destroy, nuke it from space mode and run revo again. It finds about 17,000,000,000,000,000,000 registry entries, files, scraps of files etc. I remove them all. The half icon is now gone from the control panel. I reboot. I check "Program Files" no Java folder. I search for Java, no results. I look everywhere I can think of Java is nowhere to be seen. I run the installer "Java is already installed on this system would you like to reinstall?"
FUCK!!!!!!
"YES" REINSTALL!
"We're sorry, this operation only applies to applications that are already installed"
*Begin pounding head on table*
I open regedit, and do a "find" on Java. and delete every entry I find. Like 7 in all.
I run CCCleaner and repair or remove everything with a missing .dll
Reboot. Start the Java installer. "This application is already installed..."
Begin weeping like I just watched the ending of Old Yeller.
Screw it I decide I am going to just reimage the machine. I'm sorry the guy is going to lose whatever data he had on it but it's nothing irreplacable. We had just created a new image because we were updating applications so I grab Ghost and the USB key with the latest image and get ready to start.
Something stopped me... I went to the master image machine and checked the Java version. The wrong version has been reinstalled... again. With a feeling of dread I start uninstalling ...
It completes.
I begin reinstalling. It completes no problem.
I start to burn another image. Please wait 2.5 hours while we force a 41GB install onto a 32GB flashdrive
2.5 hours later I move back to the problem machine and begin to install the image. 1.5 hours later I am finally able to boot up and check the java install. Relief, the correct version is installed. All seems right with the world but tomorrow is another day.
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