Terry Pinnell wrote:
VanguardLH wrote:

Terry Pinnell wrote:

I've had Java installed on my PCs for decades. But I'm wondering if it
actually does anything.

Not unless you have Java-encoded apps that use that interpreter.

I've just switched on the 'Enable logging'
option via Settings Control Panel Java

Works to tell you what happens when you run a Java app. Doesn't sound
like you have any.

However, using an elevated command prompt I was able to use dir *.*
which reports no files in that folder.

No point in creating a log file for logging an app when you don't have
any Java apps to run.

Q: Is there a way to trigger some trivial Java activity so that I can
test that I can access it in future?

Uninstall Java. You don't have any Java-encoded apps. If you ever hit
a site that wants to push a Java app to your host to run locally, you
can decide then whether to bother with that site's app or install Java
again which includes Java Web Start to run the Java app offered by the
site (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Web_Start).

JavaWS locally caches the Java apps and runs them locally. When you had
a Java plug-in in your web browser, the apps got downloaded and were
passed using the plug-in to the java.exe interpreter so those apps were
also ran locally and external to the web browser. JavaWS has been
around for well over a decade and Sun was prodding Java developers to
move to using it. Not until plug-ins got killed in web browsers did
Java programmers move off their collective keister to use JavaWS.

Unless your host is a workstation on a corporate network where they have
mission-critical apps still coded in Java (which means it is not your
your host and not your choice if Java is installed or not), it's
unlikely you will ever need Java any more than you will need Jscript,
Python, Ruby, Ada, Modula, Perl, PHP, Tcl, Fortran, or Cobol.

Thanks all, very helpful - although some of it is over my head.

I'm hesitating about uninstalling Java since getting this reply a short
time ago to my similar post in the WindowsTenForums:
"If you use internet based banking (online bank) it is often used to
verified your identity, so do not uninstall it!"

I do use online banking...

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Java _could_ be used as an infection vector.
That is the main reason it is going away.
Personally, if my bank required Java for online access and I wanted online
access then I would find another bank.