Manual uninstall of JRE..can't update either

Question

I have jre1.5.0.03 installed, and wanted to upgrade to .04
I wanted to uninstall .03 first, but the uninstaller said "K is not a valid unit", and exit with an irreversible error. K is the unit where the installation file was (the exe I downloaded from sun site)..but that disk broke, so K does not exist anymore.
I tried to upgrade without uninstalling..same error.
I also tried creating a virtual unit, naming it K..but this time the error was "Documenti is not a valid short file name"..
So I can't uninstall..I can't upgrade..Can you help me with a manual uninstall, so that I can then upgrade?
Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

There isn't an "official" manual uninstall that I'm aware of. That said, the locations of the Java installables and Registry entries are identified in the following documents for the 1.5 version.
Java Installation Instructions, in Private vs. public JRE, which is the 3rd paragraph from the bottom.
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/install-windows.html
and
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/install-windows-diskspace.html
By manually removing the stuff mentioned, Java should be removed.
HOWEVER, the Windows Installer files (xxxx.msi) associated with Java may need to be cleaned (in Windows/system32 in XP), and Java references may need to be removed from the browser (open Tools | Intternet Options | Advanced and check the list.)
To check if more references remain that need removal, run a search of the computer for "java" and "sun" and review the results.