Java Error 1603

I was getting the error 1603 for a few months when trying to update Java.  Then I decided it was time to dig into the problem.

My google searches weren't helping. To me, spending more than 15-20 minutes is a long time to search because normally the search results I get back explain how to fix issues usually within a few minutes.  I had spent 40-45 minutes trying to fix my issue.

I'm using Windows 7 (it's a work machine). Normally when I try and pass the buck by asking our (outsourced) help desk for help on issues I have with my machine, they go down the wrong path and sometimes they cause more issues.

I tried many different suggestions but none seemed to work. I had high hopes for these suggestions but they didn't work either...

http://java.com/en/download/help/error_1603.xml

I ended up taking suggestions from different forum posts and performing them in a different order to solve my issue with updating Java.

I uninstalled Java and couldn't reinstall. Forum posts kept telling me to reboot and reinstall Java but that 1603 error kept coming up.  I tried the 32-bit and the 64-bit offline installers as well.  Because I had uninstalled Java and the error kept coming up during the install, in my mind, I didn't have any Java files on my machine at all.

I came across a forum post that suggested to do a Start-->javacpl.exe     That's when it clicked that maybe some files were either left behind or some files made it back onto my computer during my repeated reinstall attempts. The suggestion was to start the Java control panel, click on the Security tab and deselect "Enable Java content in the browser" option.

After I did that, I close the control panel and searched to see if I had left over files from the 64-bit version reinstall attempts I performed.  I didn't see any so I then tried to install the offline Java installer and it finally worked.  After the install completed, I went back into the Java control panel and re-enabled "Enable Java content in the browser" option.