Installing 32-bit Java Runtime Environment(JRE) software as SYSTEM in Windows 7 x64 via SCCM/SMS.


I recently ran into an issue updating the Sun Java runtime (JRE) on our x64 machines where 32 version of JRE is installed.  We have lot of systems with JRE 32bit version installed on Windows 7 and XP 64-bit systems. When I advertised the JRE 32-bit executable on those systems the installation failed on the systems with 1619 exit code. 

1619 exit code translates to “This installation package could not be opened. Verify that the package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer package.

Well, In Windows 7, processes that run as local system have a special profile found in  c:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile.  Unfortunately, on 64-bit systems, there are two system32 folders; one for 64-bit processes, and another (whose name is syswow64) for 32-bit processes.  As a result, there are two separate system profiles; one for 32-bit, one for 64-bit.
The Sun Java installer unpacks into a subfolder of the LocalLow application data directory.  In this case, the folder in question is C:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\LocalLow\Sun\Java\jre1.7.0_11\.  Because this is a 32-bit process, though, it is really writing to syswow64 instead of system32.
The Windows Installer, however, is a 64-bit process.  So when it is asked to open the MSI file, it’s looking in the wrong place; hence error code 1619.  The file can’t be opened because it can’t be found.

As a workaround you could targeted the 64-bit systems that needs 32-bit JRE by configuring the program to run under the user context. Well, your end users on the systems must have admin rights to install when the advert executes on their system.

You can also directly pick the extracted JRE MSI content from C:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\LocalLow\Sun\Java\jre1.7.0_11\ from any system and use this content to create the package and deploy it.