Java mysterious installations

You should see a Java icon pop up in the system tray when an update is available.

Maybe you should consider using EMET (if you don't use it already)

Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET)

You can automatically add rules for Java by importing them.

You should note that I'm using an older version of EMET rather than the current version.

There's a tutorial here:

Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET)

I thought the system tray option would give you a permanent access to Java Control Panel.

I do have EMET installed and I don't understand much about it. Sometimes, it closes Word when I've done something it does not like.

It already has several Java executables in its Application Configuration panel : java.exe, javaw.exe and javaws.exe. Do I get more protection by importing this Recommended Software.xml ?

Also, do I have something to do to make sure EMET is properly updated ? I don't see any menu item to that effect, and the help seems to be missing.

Edit : Microsoft says you have to download manually the help .pdf, rename it and copy it in the installation folder. Because they update it from time to time. Thanks, Microsoft. How many people work at your place ? Ten ? Twenty ? Now the Microsoft menu marked Help actually opens the help. If you have a pdf reader on your machine.

If you navigate to Recommended Software.xml and right click to open/ edit it with your text editor you can check contents to see it would be useful. Basically it will import rules for anything listed. Since I don't use Java or much of the software listed I create my own rules for applications using wildcards.

Those applications would typically be:

* Any/all web browsers installed on your computer (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera)
* Entire MS Office suite (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word)
* Java
* Any media player (Windows Media Player, VLC, iTunes, RealPlayer, QuickTime, Winamp)
* Any software that waits and listens for a network connection
* Any application that can be automatically invoked by browsing the internet
* Any Adobe product that you see frequently listed within Adobe's Security bulletins and advisories - but NOT Flash Player.

RE: MS Word. If you open EMET GUI - Start> All Programs> EMET> EMET GUI

Go to "Apps" and untick EAF mitigation for Word. Then click OK.

If you still have issues disable all mitigations for Word then enable them a few at a time until you can reproduce the isssue. Then you can work out which mitigation is causing problems.

RE: EMET updates. I have not updated since 4.1

I'm sure that updates need to be checked for manually by searching on the web. I'm not 100% sure if it#s okay to install a new version straight over the top of an old version either.

RE: System Tray icon. I guess you should only see it when the application that uses Java is running. If you don't see it check your system tray icons:

Right Click "Start" orb > Properties> Taskbar> Notification Area> Customize

Does it show up in the list? If so set to always display.

More info:

I launched Javacpl.exe from the localized version of Java and ticked the option to place an icon in the ststem tray. The message I got was that changes required a browser shutdown/ restart which indicates to me that that icon is only supposed to display when Java is running in the browser - which of course it will not do on my machine.