# JAVA: Necessary, a pain, or great?



## policetac (Apr 10, 2005)

Hey, I have this neighbor who deleted his "Java updates" through his "Add / Remove Programs" in Win XP Pro.
I haven't seen his system working since as he is currently re-installing an O.S. (I don't know if this removal wrecked his system or if this is a different H.D. setup all together.)
I don't believe the program info to remove would cause a failure, as if I remember correctly this removable one, is simply a 100Mb+ update set of code.
I recently removed my own with no ill effects as I've been told it's not really supported anymore, being phased out of all Microsoft products, and is a terrible source of malicious code very easily. Simply that the risk does not outweigh the benifit.
Is any of this true?
I'll be checking back off and on all night if anyone can give me a little help.
ThanX!
[email protected]


----------



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Hi policetac,

It is true that Microsoft's version of Java, i.e. the Java VM, was not standard and did not follow the specification of Java which is still under the control of Sun - i.e. Microsoft was trying to co-opt Java as their version to become the defacto standard. They lost the battle and the war.

Java is still very much alive an used all over the Web by website developers. You can get the latest version of Java here, and unless you do software development with Java, all you need is the JRE: * Java Runtime Environment Download
http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp <- 16MB download (use it)

The latest release (non-beta) is version 1.5.0_06.

If the browser you use is IE, which uses ActiveX, you are probably more at risk than using Java. I use Firefox with Java and JavaScript enabled with the extension NoScript which allows me to toggle what can be temporarily vs permanently executed on my computer.

-- Tom


----------



## policetac (Apr 10, 2005)

Thank you for your response. It was exactly the info I needed. 
I'll consider this one solved.
(And as soon as I figure out how to post that in my thread I'll do it myself, but for now I'll assume a moderator reads it and does it?)
Anyway, thanx again for the help, and have a nice day.
13:34 Spokane, Wa USA partial clowdy w/occasional breaks of beautiful sun. Temp:55
[email protected]


----------



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

Hi policetac,

Just login to TSG, goto this thread in Development subforum here, and use the Thread Tools pull-down to mark the thread as solved. Only thread initiators and of course moderators can use the Mark as Solved selection.

Glad to have helped!

-- Tom


----------

