Here's a solution that worked for me:

1. Open a new finder window and navigate to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/. There you will find a file named JavaAppletPlugin.plugin.
2. Control + Click this file and choose Show Package Contents from the contextual menu.
3. Inside the package, navigate to /Contents/Home/bin/.
4. Double click the ControlPanel file to display the Java Control Panel. Change any settings as you wish and then save it.
5. From now on, the panel will be available as always from “Apple” menu > System Preferences...

Note: if you don't find the JavaAppletPlugin.plugin file inside the /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/ folder, open the Terminal.app and create a symlink from the original:

sudo ln -s /System/Library/Java/Support/CoreDeploy.bundle/Contents/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

Reference

The previous image we used allowed us to switch between "very high" and "high" in the java security pane. This fixes the issue. Currently on this new image it's grayed out, so we cannot access any of these management sites.

This is due to the current configuration of the Windows image you are using. You will have to find and locate the deployment.properties file and remove the following line from the file.

I've tried numerous solutions after some extensive googling and finding where java's settings are stored but the (windows\sun\java\deployment) folder is empty.

deployment.security.level.locked

The Java configuration deployment file can literally be located in any location on the system. You need to find the deployment.config file on the system. This file defines the location of the properties of the Java configuration. You should contact whomever created the Windows image in question for more information.

If you want to override the settings, create your own deployment.config and deployment.properties, then deploy them to C:\Windows\Sun\Java\Deployment. You could also just add the sites to the exception list.

I'm answering my own question because this took me hours to figure out, and I can't find the information anywhere else. In short, it does work, but not correctly.

The first problem, no preference pane, is because Oracle is not testing on a CASE-SENSITIVE mac system. The preference pane /Library/PreferencePanes/JavaControlPanel.prefPane is a link to the actual preference pane, supposedly /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/lib/deploy/JavaControlPanel.prefpane (note the lower case .prefpane). If you go look, the name is really JavaControlPanel.prefPane. This was a capital Pane to figure out :) Just change the link:

sudo ln -sf /Library/Internet\ Plug-Ins/JavaAppletPlugin.plugin/Contents/Home/lib/deploy/JavaControlPanel.prefPane /Library/PreferencePanes/JavaControlPanel.prefPane

The second problem appears to be more my fault. Installing the java 7 SE jdk and not just the runtime fixed this.

PS: I'm still amazed that Apple would just delete programs from your computer with a minor upgrade. Much of the information on managing Java on your mac is now outdated (with the loss of the java preference app from the /Applications/Utilities folder).

I realise this is an old post but I have recently had this issue in a corporate environment when using MS EMET 5.2 and it was because DEP was enabled in EMET. Removing the tick from DEP in the EMET GUI returned the Java control panel.

Hi Tommy,

It isn't occurring on a specific application that I can tell, if it is, my best guess is it has to be something operating in the background, as its occurring as soon as i turn my pc on, and every time I close the error, no matter if i have any apps open or all closed, the error will keep re-appearing.

When I get the time I'll try the above suggestions.

Thanks.

I'm getting the same thing. And when I try to reinstall it, the Java installer just bounces a few times and never opens a window. Never starts, unable to reinstall it.

I created another profile/account and used it after switching - and the apps that had been failing to start - never use any CPU - would work like they were supposed to.

By now it's pretty obvious something is not right in my home directory, but it's not being intuitive.