This is a user permission issue and has apparently been (re-)introduced several JRE updates ago. To store your settings, you have to run the Java Control Panel in administrator mode.
Find the javacpl.exe in the bin subdirectory of your JRE installation, and use the context menu to run it as administrator. Any changes you make to the settings should now be saved when you apply and close the window.
You may be seeing a 32bit vs 64bit jre conflict in the control panel.
On a new HP laptop I have (win7 64bit), I ended up with both the 64bit and 32bit JRE installed, without actually doing anything. Shortly after starting to use the system, I accepted a prompt to update java. Later I noticed that the java version in the control panel was still old, however, the java version in ie8 was the newer version. You can see the version in your browser by browsing to about:plugins (in mozilla, chrome) or:
When I ran the 64bit version of ie8 (normally you are running the 32bit version), and visited the above testjava link, it indicated I had an out of date version and did a
choke, die when I tested it.
The 32bit version was doing the auto-update (via a background process) run from:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
SunJavaUpdateSched "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jusched.exe"
So, it seems like the control panel was showing the 64bit of the jre, which was not auto-updating and the 32bit version of the jre was auto-updating. I did not see any auto-update process for the 64bit version of the jre. I will probably try and un-install the 64-bit version of the jre because my average user does not need this.
I was able to run the 32bit version of the control panel from:
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe
and it did show the Update tab.
fyi: the 64-bit (old) version of the control panel was at:
- C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\javacpl.exe
Best Answer
I realise this is an old post but I have recently had this issue in a corporate environment when using MS EMET 5.2 and it was because DEP was enabled in EMET. Removing the tick from DEP in the EMET GUI returned the Java control panel.