Java, Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Windows Live Sign-in Cause Error
Well, I have spent several months wondering why I couldn’t ever load any Java applets in IE 7. Not that it’s a big deal since I use FireFox more than Internet Explorer, for reasons obvious to many Web surfers. However, it kept nagging at me and so I looked into it today and found out the following:
Java loves to keep every update installed and separate on your system. I had nearly 1GB of java “updates” and JRE and JDK updates installed, each of them over 100MB, many over 200MB. What is the point of this Sun? Why force all of them to remain, if the current is the best one to use? Should it not prompt me whether or not I want to keep the old version, in case I need it for compatibility or something instead of automatically filling my hard drive with software that is not even used?
Windows Live Messenger installs the Windows Live Sign-in Helper and Windows Live Sign-in Control. Both causing issues. On my home system, under my wife’s profile, she opens IE7, only to have it load a Microsoft Live page, then redirect her to the MSN home page that she uses. It honestly adds several seconds, if not more, to the browser load time. The purpose? I am not sure, because my profile does not do this.
Secondly, after researching the Java errors:
The Java JRE could not be loaded.
and
Several Java Virtual Machines Running on the same process caused an error.
I found out the following: The Microsoft/Windows Live Sign-in helper and controls were to blame. How do I know this?
Remember I said that I had many Java versions installed? Well, I uninstalled them all, and went and got a fresh download of the JDK (Java Development Kit – I use some Java programming at times), which includes the JRE (Java Run-time Envrionment). What did this acccomplish? Nothing but a waste of about 45 minutes uninstalling, downloading and re-installing. It should be noted I had to edit a config file for my NetBeans 5.5 IDE aftwards since the JDK was a newer version – not a big deal, but still another step in the saga.
So, this did not help at all. The funny thing is all my other browsers worked fine all this time. Then I read about the Live sign-in stuff.
Woohoo!! I disable both the Widnows Live Sign-in Control (ActiveX control) and the Windows Live Sign-in Helper (browser helper object) and restarted IE7 and I have Java again!!
Here is a screenshot of the two items I disabled to get my java going again:
