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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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

2013-02-26T10:02:44+00:00

Most helpful..... I also removed a few others that do the same while I was browsing the list. Thanks for your answer and for getting to the point. :)

Thanks again for your assistance...I had already removed mcafee and the jucheck pop up stopped coming up. I was however able to use your command and get rid of some another annoying add ons that kept starting...

Great to find a real answer and not just fluff!

God bless,

Mark G
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Anonymous

2013-02-26T10:14:45+00:00

jucheck.exe is just Java Update Checker which check for update to Java which nearly everybody uses sometime. So just let it run. It IS a program so it CAN be a virus but I haven't found any virus associated to this program. You start IE or Firefox each day dont you? That IS a program also so COULD be a virus.

But if jucheck.exe bothers you, just go to the Java control panel select the update part and uncheck "Check for update automatically" and it will stop showing. Or have the check done just once a month. But if you never update your Java software then over time some functions in programs or websites may stop working because your Java Virtual Machine is to old.

Bye

Gústav K Gústavsson

I'm sorry Gústav K Gústavsson - but your answer is not helpful...I was getting this message every time I logged onto my computer. If I clicked update...the computer immediately went into a mcafee virus download and hung and crashed the machine.

Mine jucheck.exe message was from oracle, not java. I don't even use mcafee on my machine anymore, and hadn't used it in over a year. I use norton antivirus that comes with my internet service provider...

Once I removed mcafee, it stopped coming up. Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with mcafee, but this version of jucheck.exe that mystyriously showed up on my computer, was not your typical jave update.

Thanks for your attempt to assist, but your answer was not helpful in this particular instance.

Thanks for trying,

God bless,

Mark G
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