Is this issue reproducible on your server using a non-multi-conf project?

When building a "free style project", a download for j2sdk cannot be configured.

On Linux I do get in the job console:

Started by user admin
ERROR: Retry Count..........5
ERROR: retrying..........4
FATAL: null
java.lang.NullPointerException
at hudson.tools.JDKInstaller.locateStage1(JDKInstaller.java:281)
at hudson.tools.JDKInstaller.locate(JDKInstaller.java:227)
at hudson.tools.JDKInstaller.performInstallation(JDKInstaller.java:114)
....

We have been unable to install any or the 1.4 series JDKs on CentOS 5.3, Win
2003 SP1 or SP2, or Win 2008.

the 1.5 and 1.6 series auto-install fine.

One thing I noticed was that Win 2008 displayed a notification from the
installer that all Java processes has to be stopped in order to install
j2sdk1.4.2_19

Note: 1.4.2_11 cannot be installed on Ubuntu 9.04 (with or without Hudson):

Do you agree to the above license terms? [yes or no]
Unpacking...
tail: cannot open `+511' for reading: No such file or directory
Checksumming...
1
The download file appears to be corrupted. Please refer
to the Troubleshooting section of the Installation
Instructions on the download page for more information.
Please do not attempt to install this archive file.

The reason is that this archive is missing a critical fix for GNU coreutils'
/usr/bin/tail which I can find in the 6u14 installer at least:

if [ "`uname -s`" = "Linux" ]; then
tail_args="-n"
fi

Probably a newer 1.4.2 update fixes this too.

Code changed in hudson
User: : jglick
Path:
trunk/hudson/main/core/src/main/java/hudson/tools/JDKInstaller.java
http://fisheye4.cenqua.com/changelog/hudson/?cs=19225
Log:
[FIXED JENKINS-3914] JDK 1.4.2 installations were broken because there is no option to select a language.

I don't think my issue is fixed.
I unchecked the "Automatic Install" and installed j2sdk1.4.2_11 to
C:\j2sdk1.4.2_11.
If I set the "JAVA_HOME" environment variable on the Hudson server and I
configure a "Free Style Software Project", the build works fine.
But we want to install, if possible, automated, multipple JDK's on the server
to be able to test the builds with newer JDK's. For that, we need to change the
JAVA_HOME variable dynamically depending on the build job. That is why I try to
create the same job in a "multi-configuration project".
In the configuration of the project, under "confguration matrix" I tick the box
next to j2sdk1.4.2_11.
In the log file of the job, only three lines of text appear:

Started by user <UserName>
Starten van j2sdk1.4.2_11
j2sdk1.4.2_11 is still in the queue: Waiting for next available executor

So even without "Automatic Install" ticked, the job does not start to build.