Alternate method of launching Java Control Panel:

Click Windows Start button.
In the Start Search box, type:

• Windows 32-bit OS:

  C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin\javacpl.exe**
  

• Windows 64-bit OS:

  C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7\bin\javacpl.exe**
  

Ref: Docs

You can click on Search present on taskbar or press Ctrl + Q.
Search "Configure Java" and click on it.
That should open the Java Control Panel.

The only solution that I have come up with in a similar situation: to uninstall & re-install Java.

It's possible that this issue has something to do with what happens when Java update loads a new version to your system. I am saying this because Java by default tends to install itself into directories where the directory name has the version number. So a change in version number => changes the installation directory => may have an effect on some paths were system expects to find Java.

I am not sure if this is the cause however but so as to remove that possibility, when I re-installed Java I created a custom directory C:\Program Files\Java\JDK (this was the 64-bit version; a 32-bit version should have been placed in C:\Program Files (x86)) and directed the installer to put everything in that directory (instead of its default which would have been something like: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk_1.8.0.66).

If you are installing just the JRE then the custom path could be something like C:\Program Files\Java\JRE (instead of the default C:\Program Files\Java\jre8).

When you uninstall Java, make sure that:

• The Java directories (in either C:\Program Files (x86)\Java or C:\Program Files\Java) are actually deleted by the uninstaller. If not, it's better to delete them manually (since you will be re-installing them anyway, this should be fine).
• Any environment variables (e.g. JAVA_HOME, PATH, etc) that refer to the old location actually point to the new location