This is 2 separate issues with ladybird and merlin, but they are related.

Ladybird checks to see if there is a newer version of the jre already installed on the system. If not, it will edit the CurrentVersion string to "1.3". The problem is, it will copy java.exe to the WINSYSDIR in all cases. If a user already has 1.4 installed, the 1.3.1 installer will not edit the CurrentVersion string, but it will still copy java.exe into the WINSYSDIR. When the user runs java.exe they will encounter and error because it expects the CurrentVersion to be "1.3", but it is "1.4".

The problem with Merlin is that it doesn't even check to see if there is a newer version. It will automatically update the CurrentVersion string and copy the java.exe. This will not give the error that we are seeing in ladybird, but it will become a problem when users have 1.5 and later releases on their machine. The merlin installer will make CurrentVersion 1.4 and copy the java.exe, when it should stay 1.5 and not copy the java.exe.

The correct algorithm for all releases should be to check whether there is a newer version of the jre on the machine. If there is already a newer version, do not edit the CurrentVersion string, and do not copy java.exe to the WINSYSDIR. If there is not a newer version, edit the CurrentVersion, and copy java.exe. The two tasks should always be done either both together, or not be done both together.

Another thing to note is the dot.dot key, which is a subkey of "Java Runtime Environment". The values of this key should always point to the latest version of the jre of this dot.dot family. This is important because it is also used by the java.exe in WINSYSDIR. If a user has 1.4.0 and 1.4.1 installed on their system, the 1.4 key should always hold info about the 1.4.1 release, no matter which one was installed first. It is important to maintain this behavior for all releases.

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