I keep getting notices from Oracle to update my java. But when I attempt to do so it always fails. I know that by August it is probably game over for XP sp3. But I thought I would ask anyway. Thanks very much in advance!

I think that the topic in which @dencorso explained how to get Java working again is no longer available due to the server failure that this forum had. I don't remember the exact procedure, but I do remember that Java still works in our beloved XP, it's just the installer that doesn't work. I remember that I extracted the updated Java files, then I copied the folder containing them in the normal Java path (where they would normally be) and then I changed something in the registry to make Java aware that it was updated. Perhaps @dencorso still remembers the procedure.

Let's say you've got jre1.8.0_152 already installed. It'll be at C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_152
Rename that to C:\Program Files\Java\Old_java
Create a new folder and rename it to C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_152 (it'll be empty, of course).
Extract all the contents (subfolder included) from jre-8u172-windows-i586.tar.gz into that empty folder just created.
Merge the attached .reg to the registry (it must be modified for each new version, of course).
Replace the old javacpl.cpl at C:\WINDOWS\system32 by the new version from now on C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_152\bin
Reboot and enjoy your updated java! 

Note: updated .REG file is in the post below.

Here is the .REG file for the latest jre-8u181.

NewJavaRegs181.7z

It will work in XP, with a catch.
Anything using jfxwebkit.dll(say, a java application with html GUI) will fail, because that component has vista+ dependencies.

8 hours ago, dencorso said:

Here is the .REG file for the latest jre-8u181.

NewJavaRegs181.7z

what does the reg *do*? I've always just extracted the gz into the 152 folder after deleting it's contents. it works fine.

I assume it's to stop any auto-update routine from still nagging you to update when you already have the latest files.
Personally I've always re-named the folder to reflect the new version, rather than leave it as jre1.8.0_152, but if you do that you will need to reflect that in the registry entries of course, and manually edit the "deployment.properties" file in the "D:\Users\{username}\Application Data\Sun\Java\Deployment" folder to get the path right again.
Neater for me, but I have terrible OCD about that sort of thing!

ah. I shut off the auto updater long time ago, before these issues even started.

 

The .REG expects one to keep the name of the directory the newest/latest java is in  as "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_152" and sets the 3 fundamental variables programs use to find out which java version is in the system to the correct value, so it has the lines:
"PRODUCTVERSION"="8.0.1810.13"
"FullVersion"="1.8.0_181-b13"
"JreVersion"="1.8.0_181-b13"
set to the right value. These lines must be changed accordingly for each new java version installed. It also disables java updates.

N.B: Now, if one does change the name of the directory the newest/latest java, then there're numerous other places in the registry that should be adjusted, which is the reason for my suggesting to keep it as "C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_152" .

I just use search and replace on my registry editor!

34 minutes ago, Dave-H said:

I just use search and replace on my registry editor!

And it works, of course!
But one must be careful to search all needed strings and replace (using u152 as the old one and u181 as the new one for the sake of this example): "jre1.8.0_152" by "jre1.8.0_181"; "8.0.1520.16" by "8.0.1810.13"; "1.8.0_152-b16" by "1.8.0_181-b13" and "11.152.2" by "11.181.2"... All the needed version numbers are easily findable in the File Properties of java.exe and javacpl.cpl, of course.

On 7/21/2018 at 4:43 AM, 404notfound said:

It will work in XP, with a catch.
Anything using jfxwebkit.dll(say, a java application with html GUI) will fail, because that component has vista+ dependencies.

So should we copy the old u152 jfxwebkit.dll over the u181 one, or will that cause other problems?

No idea, didn't try.

I've always copied the latest version of jfxwebkit.dll over along with all the other files.
I've not seen any resulting issues, but I probably don't have anything that uses it anyway.

4 hours ago, 404notfound said:

No idea, didn't try.

I'll give it a shot if you know of a good test page for it.