Deployment Rule Set broken with Java 7u55

Question

Hello!
I'm using Deployment Rule Set in my company environment, its signed by code signing certificate that is given out by internal CA. After I upgraded to Java 7u55, the Deployment Rule Set does not recognize older statically installed Java version.
Versions I have:
7u45 - install directory: C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.7.0_45
7u51 - install directory: C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.7.0_51
7u55 - install directory: C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.7.0_55 or C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\ - neither does not work
When I go to site described in Ruleset and that has to use Java 7u45, then I receive an message "Deployment Rule Set required Java version 1.7.0_45 not available. In the same way it doesn't recognize 1.7.0.51 or even Java version 6.
When I uninstall Java 7u55, everthing works fine again.
My ruleset looks like this:
<ruleset version="1.0+">
     <rule>
          <id location="first.site.com" />
          <action permission="run" version="1.7.0_45" />
     </rule>
     <rule>
          <id location="second.site.com" />
          <action permission="run" version="1.7.0_51" />
     </rule>
     <rule
          <id />
          <action permission="default" />
     </rule>
</ruleset>
Anyone knows what's wrong or is it a bug?

Answer 1

costlow - I disagree.  If I'm using IE, then I only need the internal certficate used to sign the jar to be also insalled on the machine in question in the windows CA Certs store.  If the cert was the issue, why does it work with 7u51.  If it was a bad cert, it should fail with every version.  Plus, I think the pop up has a different error message if it has a cert issue.
I'm having the exact same issue as the OP described and it all started with 7u55.  Here's what I've found:
- With 7u55 or 7u60 installed, the error will come up rergardless of what prior version is being requested.
- If 7u51 is the latest installed, it works
-  If 8u05 is installed with 7u55 and/or 7u60, it works
- If I install the 7u60 EA b15, it works
Something in the final release is being added that blocks this functionality, but for some odd reason only in the 7 family starting with 7u55.
Any insight you could give would be very helpful.  In the meantime, I am deploying 8u05 to cover this up, but it does pose issues for some apps that don't work with the new 8 family plugin.