Hello Oracle, anyone at home?
Java 7u65 either breaks or affects many rich client (AWT/SWT) WebStart apps on Windows, because the previous WebStart launcher was replaced by jp2launcher.exe, which is lacking a DLL dependency to the Windows common controls library comctl32.dll. Button labels are missing, grid controls are unusable, stuff like that .
That happened one month ago. The bug has been filed for OpenJDK as well as in the Oracle Java bug database (see Eclipse bug report comment section and this Oracle froum thread, the bug is still not public), but no official statement so far. There even has been another update since (Java 7 Update 67), but this one did not address it either.
In the meantime, one can only try to prevent Java 7u65 / 7u67 rollouts wherever possible. And I used Resource Hacker to compile and store the missing dependency section to jp2launcher.exe's manifest manually, which works. But that's of course a hack...
This is the missing section, in case someone wants to try the same (do at your own risk!):
<dependency>
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity
type="win32"
name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
version="6.0.0.0"
processorArchitecture="*"
publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
language="*"
/>
</dependentAssembly>
</dependency>
