[RESOLVED] Can I Uninstall Old Versions

[broadley]

Doing a bit of cleaning up I notice in Control Panel-Add or Remove Programs that it lists JSE Runtime Environment:
5.0 Update 6, 5.0 Update 9, 5.0 Update 10, 5.0 Update 11, 6 Update 1 & SE v1.4.2_03.

I also see that Firefox 2.0.0.1 is listed. I'm currently using V. 2.0.0.3. These all take up space on my HDD. Can any of these be removed, or do the latest versions need the earlier ones?

Thanks

[Tuttle]

Firefox updates over itself, so leave whatever version is listed there installed, even if you've upgraded since.

Java, on the other hand, keeps installing additional versions without cleaning up the old ones. In almost all cases you can ditch the old ones, so keep JRE 6 Update 1 and uninstall everything else.

There are a small handful of (badly written) programs that are tied to a specific JRE version. If you have one of those, it may stop working after you uninstall all the old Javas, but reinstalling it will fix it. That situation is pretty rare though, especially in a home environment.

[HAN]

There are a small handful of (badly written) programs that are tied to a specific JRE version. If you have one of those, it may stop working after you uninstall all the old Javas, but reinstalling it will fix it. That situation is pretty rare though, especially in a home environment.

Sad but oh so true. I have to keep JRE 1.4.2_09 on my PC at work for a critical piece of software.

[broadley]

It looks like I'd better uninstall the old Java versions but hang on to them in case I need them again. However, that raises a question. If I uninstall them where will I find them if I need them again? I always keep a copy of stuff I install, but Java is one of those things that get installed without giving me the opportunity to save the download to a known place on my PC.

Thanks for your help.

[Tuttle]

All the old JRE versions are available here: http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/previous.jsp

In any case, if you have one of those broken apps then the matching JRE will be bundled with its installer anyway.

[Train]

Archive: Java[tm] Technology Products Download
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[broadley]

Thanks. In my further cleanup I came across about 600 log files. I have about 50 Spybot S&D log and txt files, 225 MailFrontier\otlog\all files, and about 120 Windows files with names like KB835221.log etc, etc. I presume the Windows log ones are something to do with Windows update stuff. Is it safe to delete these log & txt files? They only take up 6.5 MB, but if I don't need them....
I'd value your thoughts.

[Train]

Log files can go. I too, clean them up once in a great while.