Yakov Fain, author of such notable books as Enterprise Development with Flex and the Java 2 Enterprise Edition 1.4 Bible got tripped up uninstalling and reinstalling the Java Virtual Machine on a Windows based machine, and subsequently announced the death of Java on the client.

"I've deleted the previous install of Java SE 6U22 and now it keeps telling me that I already have it, and so far I'm not sure how to get out of this situation.....I know that Oracle promises to pay attention to Java on the client. This is not going to work unless some really really serious attention will be paid to achieving SEAMLESS INSTALL OF JRE ON THE CLIENT'S computers."

In what might be a slightly less reactionary response, respected author and RichFaces advocate Max Katz asserts that indeed there are two key obstacles for achieving success for Java on the client:

"Two things must happen for JavaFX or Java on the client to succeed:

1. easy virtual machine install 
2. easy deployment. 

Even with major, and I believe positive changes in JavaFX 2.0, without the two things I mentioned above, it’s going to lose the battle against plug-in free browser applications."

Indeed, there are many obstacles in the way of Java's success on the client platform. It would be nice to think that the solution to the age-old problem is simply a registry cleaner, an improved Windows XP uninstall program, and a user-friendly Java-centric InstallShield. Sadly, it's doubtful that even that would be enough.

http://yakovfain.javadevelopersjournal.com/why_oracles_jvm_has_no_chance

http://mkblog.exadel.com/2010/12/java-on-the-client-again/

Practical RichFaces by Max Katz
Enterprise Development with Flex by Yakov Fain
Java 2 Enterprise Edition 1.4 Bible with Yakov Fain

This says more about Windows than Java. I have had plenty of non-Java things not uninstall.