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jusched posted: Sun 2012-06-17 18:07:53 tags: tech
Comcast's high-sped product is being an annoying twat today, dropping packets and being slow and choppy in general. That always puts me in the mood for a little tweak-freaking. Today we're going to talk about the Java Update Scheduler.

In layman's terms, Java is an extension to the language of the interwebs that adds a lot of possibilities for fine-tuning website behavior and dynamics. When you see menus and boxes that slide gracefully around the page, when you see the CAPTCHAs that protect websites from spam, when you see websites like Twitter that update in real-time, even the password security when you log in via HTTP (as opposed to HTTPS) to Facebook or Youtube... all made possible by Java. So, yes, you can turn off Java entirely, but if you do, you may as well go the one extra little step, and uninstall all your web browsers too.

The Java Update Scheduler is a bit of software (jusched.exe) that loads at every Windows startup and runs continuously, introducing that much boot-time delay, taking up that much memory, complicating the machine's self-management... all to check for updates once a MONTH. Windows has its own built-in facility to run tasks on a scheduled basis, called Windows Task Scheduler. Google and Apple products use Windows Task Scheduler to keep up-to-date, but evidently Sun doesn't care about using your computer resources unnecessarily, so they litter the system with their own task scheduler.

q.v. HowToGeek re: JUSched

So, you can disable Java's updater through the relevant Windows Control Panel applet, and then reproduce Java update checking (on a more agressive schedule, even) through Windows Task Scheduler. Note the article linked above is from 2007; things have changed a bit, such that on my XP box, jucheck.exe is in the folder
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Java\Java Update

Tune in to our next installment of Tweak Freak when we **** a new hole in InstallShield Update Manager (ISUSPM.exe).