One problem I come across a lot if software that tries to auto update itself. As I work on corporate computers this is normally not possible due to a lockdown policy disabling the users from installing software, a proxy that disables the download of this software and policies from suppliers mandating a specific version of the software.
I have found the best way to disable Java from updating itself is to use a group policy preference to control the following registry entry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\JavaSoft\Java Update\Policy\EnableJavaUpdate
this is a DWORD and should be set to a value of O (Decimal).
This will disable the option to autoupdate in the control panel applet (if the user can even see it) and disable all updating. you can check the change has applied because the control panel applet now looks like this without the update tab:
The IT Fields
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