No, I don’t want to install every point release.

When I say “Do not update”, I really mean it.

Seems Java’s hard of hearing. Despite unchecking the “Check for Updates Automatically” check box, it was still checking for updates and trying to install them.

Turns out that Java’s Control Panel will only accept changes made by Administrators, so any changes you make will be quietly ignored.

Solution (for Vista 32bit):

Click “Start”.

Copy “C:\Program Files\Java\” into the search area at the bottom.

Open the bin folder inside the highest JRE release number (jre1.6.0_07\bin in my case).

Right click “javacpl.exe” and select “Run As Administrator”.

Unselect “Check for Updates Automatically” and click OK. You’re done. No more Java updates. You can still update manually from the Java Control Panel whenever you want.

For posterity, you can add a comment to a windows batch file by adding “REM” to the start of the line.

REM This is a comment

REM This is also a comment

I was using the batch file to automate the encryption of the system.identity element for multiple sites on a web server. I’ll cover the syntax for that in a separate post.