What is Jucheck.exe; keep it or remove?

Anonymous

Hello. Sorry if this is an old question, but I can’t find a good answer to this yet.

My computer is a couple weeks old, I have Windows 7 Home Premium, and when I turned it on today I got a request to allow “jucheck.exe” to run. It didn’t really give any information on the window, so I told it “No”. After some research, I’ve seen people say that if the file is in Program Files then it is fine, but if it is in Windows\System 32 then it is dangerous. The request for it to run said that it was in Windows\System 32 and I searched for it and Jucheck.exe showed up in both Program Files and Windows\System 32; both identical, by the looks of them, same size (422kb / 432,128 bytes) , dates, etc. I also found it in C:\Windows\SysWOW64, though it was a different size (377 KB / 386,872 bytes). I scanned the files with McAfee and it came back clean, so I don’t really know what to think about it.

So, should I be concerned? Should I get rid of it? And how might I go about it?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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LemP 74,970 Volunteer Moderator

@elfisho --

jucheck.exe is the name of the program that checks for Java updates. Unfortunately, however, malware can also use the same name.

On my Win 7 Pro x64 system, I have only one instance of jucheck.exe, and it is in

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Java\Java Update\jucheck.exe

It's a different size than yours -- 499 KB (511,872 bytes) -- and probably a newer version, if you haven't let Java update in a while (mine is version 2.1.60.19; you can right-click on your file, select Properties and then the "Details" tab).

You've copied an old response from 2011, so I don't know if you have scanned the files you found. If you have scanned them with an up to date antivirus, then you're probably OK.

If you're concerned, submit the file(s) to https://www.virustotal.com/ where they will be checked automatically (in real time) by a large collection of antimalware tools.

If I were you, I'd do the following:

Go to Control Panel > Programs and Features and uninstall anything that starts with "Java" (the current version is Java 7 Update 60)
Go to http://java.com/en/download/uninstallapplet.jsp and click the "Agree and Continue" button
If any older versions of Java are found, they will be uninstalled. Then download the installer stub for the current version.
Before you install the current version, check in the locations where you previously had found jucheck.exe and if any of the files are still there, delete them.
Run the file you downloaded; this will download the full installer and then start the installation process. Be sure to UNCHECK the boxes that will otherwise install the Ask Toolbar.

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Anonymous

Hello PyreSR – Welcome to Microsoft Answers Community.

The Jucheck.exe is part of Sun® microsystems components, it is

in fact the Sun® Java UpdateChecker Module. If any antivirus

program is complaining about the file, please paste the virus name.

As far as known, it shall not be a virus.

I hope you find this information useful and if you need any further assistance,

please feel free to contact me and let me know.

I hope this information was helpful…

Have a nice day…

Best regards,

Fisnik

Itknowledge24.com

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Jucheck

I have had many PCs, Laptops, etc. Until recently, about 6-8 months ago, I get this jcheck.exe pop up, telling Java update is available. There a number of easy things you have to do to safeguard your machine, what I did/do are:

I go the source, Oracle (who make Java), and see if there is indeed an update available - at least 5 times during my jucheck.exe plague.

2. Only recently this has begun to appear, at least everu 4-5 days; asked myself, Java have never released so many updates.

3. If there is indeed an update available, then download from the main, Sun/Oracle website, there are two useful sites, https://www.oracle.com/index.html and https://search.oracle.com. You need only check these once or twice, and will find jucheck.exe is perhaps harmful; I am not an expert and for me, it is better this way.

Conclusion. It is a mystery to me why common, highly rated safety software, have not yet picked it up?? either way, safe or not - simply, they should send an email to all subscribers, who pay a lot of money, telling us whether it is safe or harmful.

I hope this helps, takes minutes, could have you a lot in time, money and aggravation; IO found after about 10 checks that go update about once a month, directly at above sites.

Good Luck

Prakash

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117 additional answers

Anonymous

2011-07-31T18:57:25+00:00

This is definitely a virus. There is the legit jucheck with Java, but there is one that is a virus that disguises itself as the jucheck. I kept getting a pop up that asked if I wanted to allow jucheck.exe to make changes, and when I clicked no, it would keep popping up and not go away. Mine was in my computer:users:appdata:local:temp. The regular virus checkers like Malwarebytes will not detect this virus. Download Norton Power Eraser. It detects viruses that other virus detectors will not. I downloaded it and ran the program and it immediately detected and then erased the virus. I ran a few different programs and this is the only one that worked.
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Anonymous

2011-07-31T02:32:45+00:00

I cannot properly express how angry i am, watching your unhelpful, naive comments popping up over and over. I googled this same question because I too had the exact problem as the person wh started this thread. It was a Virus! It wasnt anything that the computer already had. Yes maybe jucheck.exe is a file that has some helpful purpose in the computer but this was just mal-ware that had the same name. He/she even told you that it was an issue and you arrogantly barked back at him that you were not wrong! Well guess what? YOU WERE!!!! I just located and deleted the file from my comp IN MY USERS DRIVE UNDER THE APPLEAPPS FOLDER and the problem went away. Which makes all the BS you wrote more annoying than the actual pop-up of jucheck. Please stop trying to promote your site because you made yourself look like an idiot and no one wants to go to it.

Sincerely,

Quit @ Life

Reality
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