Much has been posted in regards to Java and how to uninstall it. A lot of scripts rely on knowing every product GUID in the registry and calling msiexec for each GUID to rid yourself of Java. After a bit of research I came up with the following approach using Powershell and WMI that avoids needing to know every GUID.
It uses a WMI query to find any product names that match specific strings. You’ll see in the code I look for ‘Java %’, with a space as there are lots of visual studio add ins that refer to “javascript”. I also look for ‘Java(TM)%’ as the JRE 6 runtime uses this specific string in it’s name. I also put into the query a filter to exclude Java Auto Updater which will be removed by the main program uninstaller and if called directly throws a 1603 return code.
I have also added a check to find any running Java processes. This is necessary as if you call the Uninstall() method, with Java processes running, the computer will reboot immediately on uninstall, without any warning.
The final part of the script will loop through the installed programs and call the Uninstall() method on each one. I plan to add a check to the script to verify that the program has an uninstall method, as some programs don’t have this method.
A word of warning that this has only been tested in my environment and I give no guarantee that this script will work correctly in your environment or won’t cause any unexpected results. You should test this script in your environment properly before use.
EDIT: I’ve updated the script to provide some more functionality and parameters in line with the Powershell Module version in a later post. I suggest you read the later post. The code is now hosted as a codeplex project to make any future changes easier to manage. Link is below.
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