Java only in admin acct (IE7 on Vista Ultimate)

**Fafner** · 2008-04-04 22:18

I have the latest version of Java (java 6 update 5) installed. When I am logged onto the one account that I have with admin priviledges, the java plug-in for IE7 seems to work fine. If I go to java.com to test the installation, it tells me I have the latest version. However, when I am logged onto one of the regular user accounts and try the same thing, java.com tells me it can't detect java on my machine. As far as I can tell, my settings in IE are the same in the users' accounts as they are in the admin account, and java shows up in Internet Options/Advanced/Java (box is checked) in all the accounts. So why can't I get it to work in a regular user's account? The reason I tackled this problem in the first place is that there is a utility at mpccorp.com (serial number lookup tool) that I want to use. If I try it in my admin account, it works, but in a regular user account nothing happens except an error message in the status bar.

With the exception of Vista SP-1, which I can't get yet, Vista and IE7 are fully patched on this computer.

Incidentally, on three computers running XP in my office, I have no trouble with java on this web site.

fafner

***JoeP517*** · 2008-04-05 04:36

Did you install the online or offline version? If it was the offline version did you use 'run as administrator'?

Joe

**Fafner** · 2008-04-05 04:54

I have no idea. Java was on the machine when I got it, and it automatically updates itself (after I respond to a prompt). So I don't know what you mean by online and offline versions. Could you provide more information?

fafner

***JoeP517*** · 2008-04-05 05:06

I recommend you go to Java Download Center - Download , download the offline Java JRE, and save it somewhere. Then uninstall Java. After the uninstall is complete, find the downloaded Java installer, right click the file, and select "Run as administrator". If you are given the opportunity to install for all users select that. Note: I don't recall Java haing this option though.

Joe

**Fafner** · 2008-04-05 12:43

Thanks. I will give that a try when I get back to my office later today. Meanwhile, I want to report what else I tried: I gave administrator privileges to one of my regular user accounts, but the java still doesn't work in that account. So it doesn't appear that it is simply the administrator privileges that make the difference.

fafner

***JoeP517*** · 2008-04-05 20:37

You have to remember that even though a user is a member of the administrator group that group does still not have the same privileges as the builtin administrator account. That is why you install with 'run as administrator' unless a product specifically says you don't need to.

Joe

**Fafner** · 2008-04-05 23:28

It gets stranger. I have two regular user accounts on this computer -- let's call them A and B, and one admin account, call it X. Earlier, as I reported, I tried giving admin privileges to account A, but Java still didn't work. So now I tried something else. While A still had admin priviledges, I reinstalled Java while logged in as A. I then removed admin privileges from A. Now the java test site works perfectly when I am logged in as A and when I am logged in as X, but it still doesn't work on B.

Stranger still, I went back to mpccorp.com (the site I was originally having trouble with), and now that applet (serial number lookup tool) still doesn't work on A, but it works on B and X. This is bizarre.

fafner

**Fafner** · 2008-04-06 19:09

Joe,
After my last post, I went looking for the JRE file download that you referred to. Clicking on the link you provided brought me to a Sun registration/logon page. Filling this out then brought me to a catalog of Sun programs available for purchase -- not what I was looking for. I spent some time hunting around the Sun Java site trying to find the proper download, but the closest I could come was a 71MB JDK file (jdk-6u5-windows-i586-p.exe), but all I want is the browser plugin (JRE), not the whole JDK. I can find the online installation easily enough, but not the offline.

And none of this, of course, explains the strange behavior I reported in my last post.

fafner

**jscher2000** · 2008-04-06 21:53

There's a 15.18MB "offline" install download here: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp (second item under Windows).

**Fafner** · 2008-04-06 22:37

Thank you. I downloaded the file and will report back after I have uninstalled my current installation and reinstalled via this file.

But I'm puzzled about how you got to that download page. I went back to java.com and tried to find it on my own, without success. Clicking on "downloads" at the top right of the page brought me to a "verify installation" page. No way could I find the download page you pointed me to.

fafner

***JoeP517*** · 2008-04-07 02:53

To get to the download page go to Java Technology. On the right side click the Java SE link. Scroll down to the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) section and 'press' the download button.

Remember when you install, right click the .exe file as select 'run as administrator'.

Joe

**Fafner** · 2008-04-07 16:45

Well, I uninstalled java and then installed the JRE again by right-clicking on the exe file and selecting Run as Administrator. Essentially, this had no effect. When I go to the "verify installation" page on each of the user accounts, one of the user accounts still gets the "can't detect java on your computer" message. The other user account and the admin account work fine, just as they did before this latest installation. I did verify that, for all accounts, the proper box is checked under Internet Options/Advanced tab/Java, so that's not the problem.

Oh, and one more thing: that "serial number lookup tool" at mpccorp.com now works for all user accounts, so I guess we have made some progress.

Fafner

***JoeP517*** · 2008-04-07 17:20

It is possible that the user account is corrupt. What happens if you create a new user?

Joe

**Fafner** · 2008-04-08 19:00

I didn't suspect that the account is corrupt, because everything else on that account works fine. Also, my main user account, the one that works now, didn't work when I started this saga, so whatever caused that problem didn't have to do with a corrupted user file (I had a corrupt user file once on an XP machine, and I couldn't even open the account.) Anyway, I created a new user account as a test, and the Java test page doesn't work there, either.

Fafner

**xodusss** · 2010-01-10 17:37

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, the above links do not work.
MPC went bankrupt and took all of their support as well as their Gateway support with them.
The new site has been created and is up and running with all original drivers, manuals, peripheral information as well as a tech support forum.
It has taken 9 months to get it there but it is available. I am not going to post the link here as I am the webmaster and we don't condone
any page linking in this forum.
Due to the tremendous support we have received in various online publications like infoworld, we have already acheived top ranking in
Google and most of the search engines.
To acces the site, just type in some type of keywords like mpc drivers and the site will come up.
Hope this helps any of you out that are needing drivers and such.

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