Deploy.java - weird deployJava.getJREs behavior

Question

Can I use deployJava.js on a machine that does not have 1.6.0_10 installed on it? I am asking because of this scenario:
I have a couple of machines with numerous JREs (1.4.X, 1.5.X, 1.6.X) installed, but it has never had 1.6.0_10 installed on it.
I did the following (notice the radically different return values of deployJava.getJREs().toString())
1. deployJava.getJREs().toString() returns "1.6.0". I had expected a list of all JREs.
2. Install 1.6.0_10.
3. deployJava.getJREs().toString() returns the complete list of installed JREs.
4. Remove 1.6.0_10
5. deployJava.getJREs().toString() continues to return the complete list of JREs. I had expected it to revert to step #1 behavior.
I am trying to make sense of this. If 1.6.0_10 is required to use these java script functions, why did the getJREs function continue to work even after I installed 1.6.0_10? Does 1.6.0_10 leave something behind in the browser that allows these functions to continue working?
Does anyone else have experience with this?

Answer 1

Hi
I believe something does stay behind. The Deployment Toolkit plugins for your browsers don't get removed even after you uninstall 6u10. Check your firefox addons and IE addons.
A side note: since the DT doesn't appear to need a JRE (it works pretty well even after uninstallation), why is it only distributed with the JRE? It would make a lot of sense to download only the plugin, thereby getting the functionality of 6u10 without yet having 6u10. It's not that I don't want 6u10, it just want it now! Because you can't use deployJava.installLatestJRE without the DT. At least, it works but not in a cool way. You can't use deployJava.setInstallType("kernel"), because it will only work if 6u10 is already installed. Am I just really confused? What is the purpose of these new generation plugins if you need them in order to install them?
It doesn't help me a bit to have a customer with 1.5.0 installed to click a webstart launch button (created with deployJava.createWebstartLaunchButton). It will simply redirect him to a java install page (and use the online installer, despite having specified kernel). Then it doensn't direct him back to my jnlp, despite the code from the createWebstartLaunchButton method clearly shows that this is to be expected.
I'm really impressed with the new functionality. It's been needed for a LONG time. But isn't it a bit chicken-egg? Better documentation would help.
Thanks