Java is one of those components that most users have installed, but can be infrequently updated and forgotten about. Updates are published on a regular basis, the most recent of which having been set free in April of this year, and although supplied with a self-updating mechanism, it's just not suitable within controlled corporate environments with good acceptable use polices in place.

Following the trend of other popular software, the Java Runtime is also bloating out with other 'useful-less' components, so on a default install you can find yourself with extra memory resident processes, browser plug-ins and helper objects which are just not required to provide applications access to the Java Runtime.

Because of this, I now update my own lab environment with a scripted silent install of Java - it does not include the extra plug-ins and browser helper objects during installation, or the memory resident updater tool. Are there any other suggestions to keep the Java Runtime installation down to a minimum? I believe in only installing what is absolutely required.