old java install pops up when clicking on a link in Outlook view pane

What do you mean by "a link in the Outlook view pane?"  Can you attach a screenshot?

I mean, the email opens below in the "Reading pane".  Sorry, you get to the Reading Pane options under "View" menu......The Reading Pane is what Microsoft calls the email preview window which can be positioned left, right or below the folders window where the inbox is.
So if you click once on an email in the inbox, it will display the email contents in the Reading Pane.  If there is a link to a web page in the email and you click on it the Adobe install begins and it installs an older version of adobe than is already installed.
After it is installed the link still does not open the browser and you have 2 versions of Java in the Control Panel.  6-22 & 6-27.

Thanks for the clarification of the terms you were using.  Now I know what you're talking about.

I can't say that I've seen anything like this ever before, but I still might be able to help.  It sounds like this might be caused by an add-in of some kind that requires java.  Before we dig deeper in that direction, let's go simple.

How about you try uninstalling all Java installations first with Outlook closed?  After restarting, without java installed, does clicking on a link in an email install 6-22 again?  If so, after that's done, close outlook and go to java.com and install the latest java 27.   Then reopen outlook and try again.  Same results?

I tried it two ways.
1.  Uninstall both versions of java.   Restart.  Click on link in outlook, installs version 6-22, never opens link.
Close outlook, restart outlook, click on link, tries to install java 6-22 again.

2. Uninstall java, restart, click on link in Outlook.  Installs version 6-22.  Close outlook, install latest version of java.  Reopen Outlook, click on link, install for java 6-22 starts again.

Any luck?

Thanks for the comments.