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Finding default user.home when it has been overridden in Java VM options [duplicate]

What is the best way to find the user's home directory in Java?
The difficulty is that the solution should be cross-platform; it should work on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, OS X, Linux, and other Unix variants. I am looking for a snippet of code that can accomplish this for all platforms, and a way to detect the platform.
Per Java bug 4787931, system property user.home does not work correctly on Windows XP, so using this system property is not an acceptable solution as it is not cross-platform.

The bug you reference (bug 4787391) has been fixed in Java 8. Even if you are using an older version of Java, the System.getProperty("user.home") approach is probably still the best. The user.home approach seems to work in a very large number of cases. A 100% bulletproof solution on Windows is hard, because Windows has a shifting concept of what the home directory means.
If user.home isn't good enough for you I would suggest choosing a definition of home directory for windows and using it, getting the appropriate environment variable with System.getenv(String).

Actually with Java 8 the right way is to use:
System.getProperty("user.home");
The bug JDK-6519127 has been fixed and the "Incompatibilities between JDK 8 and JDK 7" section of the release notes states:
Area: Core Libs / java.lang
Synopsis
The steps used to determine the user's home directory on Windows have changed to follow the Microsoft recommended approach. This change
might be observable on older editions of Windows or where registry
settings or environment variables are set to other directories. Nature
of Incompatibility
behavioral RFE
6519127
Despite the question being old I leave this for future reference.

System.getProperty("user.home");
See the JavaDoc.

The concept of a HOME directory seems to be a bit vague when it comes to Windows. If the environment variables (HOMEDRIVE/HOMEPATH/USERPROFILE) aren't enough, you may have to resort to using native functions via JNI or JNA. SHGetFolderPath allows you to retrieve special folders, like My Documents (CSIDL_PERSONAL) or Local Settings\Application Data (CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA).
Sample JNA code:
public class PrintAppDataDir {
public static void main(String[] args) {
if (com.sun.jna.Platform.isWindows()) {
HWND hwndOwner = null;
int nFolder = Shell32.CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA;
HANDLE hToken = null;
int dwFlags = Shell32.SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT;
char[] pszPath = new char[Shell32.MAX_PATH];
int hResult = Shell32.INSTANCE.SHGetFolderPath(hwndOwner, nFolder,
hToken, dwFlags, pszPath);
if (Shell32.S_OK == hResult) {
String path = new String(pszPath);
int len = path.indexOf('\0');
path = path.substring(0, len);
System.out.println(path);
} else {
System.err.println("Error: " + hResult);
}
}
}
private static Map<String, Object> OPTIONS = new HashMap<String, Object>();
static {
OPTIONS.put(Library.OPTION_TYPE_MAPPER, W32APITypeMapper.UNICODE);
OPTIONS.put(Library.OPTION_FUNCTION_MAPPER,
W32APIFunctionMapper.UNICODE);
}
static class HANDLE extends PointerType implements NativeMapped {
}
static class HWND extends HANDLE {
}
static interface Shell32 extends Library {
public static final int MAX_PATH = 260;
public static final int CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA = 0x001c;
public static final int SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT = 0;
public static final int SHGFP_TYPE_DEFAULT = 1;
public static final int S_OK = 0;
static Shell32 INSTANCE = (Shell32) Native.loadLibrary("shell32",
Shell32.class, OPTIONS);
/**
* see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762181(VS.85).aspx
*
* HRESULT SHGetFolderPath( HWND hwndOwner, int nFolder, HANDLE hToken,
* DWORD dwFlags, LPTSTR pszPath);
*/
public int SHGetFolderPath(HWND hwndOwner, int nFolder, HANDLE hToken,
int dwFlags, char[] pszPath);
}
}

Others have answered the question before me but a useful program to print out all available properties is:
for (Map.Entry<?,?> e : System.getProperties().entrySet()) {
System.out.println(String.format("%s = %s", e.getKey(), e.getValue()));
}

Alternative would be to use Apache CommonsIO FileUtils.getUserDirectory() instead of System.getProperty("user.home"). It will get you the same result and there is no chance to introduce a typo when specifying system property.
There is a big chance you already have Apache CommonsIO library in your project. Don't introduce it if you plan to use it only for getting user home directory.

As I was searching for Scala version, all I could find was McDowell's JNA code above. I include my Scala port here, as there currently isn't anywhere more appropriate.
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32._
object jna {
def getHome: java.io.File = {
if (!com.sun.jna.Platform.isWindows()) {
new java.io.File(System.getProperty("user.home"))
}
else {
val pszPath: Array[Char] = new Array[Char](WinDef.MAX_PATH)
new java.io.File(Shell32.INSTANCE.SHGetSpecialFolderPath(null, pszPath, ShlObj.CSIDL_MYDOCUMENTS, false) match {
case true => new String(pszPath.takeWhile(c => c != '\0'))
case _ => System.getProperty("user.home")
})
}
}
}
As with the Java version, you will need to add Java Native Access, including both jar files, to your referenced libraries.
It's nice to see that JNA now makes this much easier than when the original code was posted.

I would use the algorithm detailed in the bug report using System.getenv(String), and fallback to using the user.dir property if none of the environment variables indicated a valid existing directory. This should work cross-platform.
I think, under Windows, what you are really after is the user's notional "documents" directory.

If you want something that works well on windows there is a package called WinFoldersJava which wraps the native call to get the 'special' directories on Windows. We use it frequently and it works well.

Java check if program is installed on windows

Is there a way to check if a specific program is installed on Windows using Java?
I'm trying to develop a Java program that automatically creates zip archives by using the code line command from 7-Zip.
So, I would like to check in Java if on my windows OS '7-Zip' is already installed. No check for running apps or if OS is Windows or Linux. I want to get a bool (true/false) if '7-Zip' is installed on Windows.

The library Apache Commons has a class called SystemUtils - full documentation is available at https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-lang/javadocs/api-2.6/org/apache/commons/lang/SystemUtils.html.
In this library you have the following static boolean properties at your disposal:
SystemUtils.IS_OS_LINUX
SystemUtils.IS_OS_WINDOWS

The unix-like solution would be to simply try to run the program with --version flag (on windows probably the /? or - like in the 7zip case - without any at all) and check whether it fails, or what the return code will be.
Something like:
public boolean is7zipInstalled() {
try {
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec("7zip.exe");
int code = process.waitFor();
return code == 0;
} catch (Exception e) {
return false;
}
}

I assume that you're talking about Windows. As Java is intended to be a platform-independent language and the way how to determine it differs per platform, there's no standard Java API to check that. You can however do it with help of JNI calls on a DLL which crawls the Windows registry. You can then just check if the registry key associated with the software is present in the registry. There's a 3rd party Java API with which you can crawl the Windows registry: jRegistryKey.
Here's an SSCCE with help of jRegistryKey:
package com.stackoverflow.q2439984;
import java.io.File;
import java.util.Iterator;
import ca.beq.util.win32.registry.RegistryKey;
import ca.beq.util.win32.registry.RootKey;
public class Test {
public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
RegistryKey.initialize(Test.class.getResource("jRegistryKey.dll").getFile());
RegistryKey key = new RegistryKey(RootKey.HKLM, "Software\\Mozilla");
for (Iterator<RegistryKey> subkeys = key.subkeys(); subkeys.hasNext();) {
RegistryKey subkey = subkeys.next();
System.out.println(subkey.getName()); // You need to check here if there's anything which matches "Mozilla FireFox".
}
}
}
If you however intend to have a platformindependent application, then you'll also have to take into account the Linux/UNIX/Mac/Solaris/etc. (in other words: anywhere where Java is able to run) ways to detect whether FF is installed. Else you'll have to distribute it as a Windows-only application and do a System#exit() along with a warning whenever System.getProperty("os.name") is not Windows.
Sorry, I don't know how to detect in other platforms whether FF is installed or not, so don't expect an answer from me for that ;)

Locale.getDefault() returns en always

Servers on unix machine are always using en as default locale.
Following is locale output
LANG=en_US
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_ALL=C
I just don't understand if LANG is set correctly then why servers starts with en locale.

In Linux/Unix/Mac, the settings LC_ALL and LANG can control the default locale for Java programs. In Windows, the locales are set from the Control Panel, under Regional and Language Options.
When the JVM starts in a *nix environment, it will do this:
Scan the environment for LC_ALL
If LC_ALL doesn't exist, scan the environment for LANG
If the JVM setting user.language is set, use that in place of the environment variables.
If nothing is set, default to en_US (I believe this is the final failure case)
In your environment, you have LC_ALL set to C, which is just the C locale. It's basically a traditional fallback to the days when locales weren't used.
You can change LC_ALL in your case, and restart your JVM, and you should get a new value for java.util.Locale.getDefault().
Example:
import java.util.Locale;
public class LocaleTest {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(Locale.getDefault());
}
}
Here's running:
> LC_ALL=en_UK java LocaleTest
en_UK
> LC_ALL=ja_JP java LocaleTest
ja_JP
Also note that if you're running Java 1.7.0-b147, there is a bug with the JRE not recognizing environment settings for locale, and will always use the default system locale.
Bug report here: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=7073906

How can I restart a Java application?

How can I restart a Java AWT application? I have a button to which I have attached an event handler. What code should I use to restart the application?
I want to do the same thing that Application.Restart() do in a C# application.

Of course it is possible to restart a Java application.
The following method shows a way to restart a Java application:
public void restartApplication()
{
final String javaBin = System.getProperty("java.home") + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "java";
final File currentJar = new File(MyClassInTheJar.class.getProtectionDomain().getCodeSource().getLocation().toURI());
/* is it a jar file? */
if(!currentJar.getName().endsWith(".jar"))
return;
/* Build command: java -jar application.jar */
final ArrayList<String> command = new ArrayList<String>();
command.add(javaBin);
command.add("-jar");
command.add(currentJar.getPath());
final ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder(command);
builder.start();
System.exit(0);
}
Basically it does the following:
Find the java executable (I used the java binary here, but that depends on your requirements)
Find the application (a jar in my case, using the MyClassInTheJar class to find the jar location itself)
Build a command to restart the jar (using the java binary in this case)
Execute it! (and thus terminating the current application and starting it again)

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.lang.management.ManagementFactory;
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, InterruptedException {
StringBuilder cmd = new StringBuilder();
cmd.append(System.getProperty("java.home") + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "java ");
for (String jvmArg : ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getInputArguments()) {
cmd.append(jvmArg + " ");
}
cmd.append("-cp ").append(ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getClassPath()).append(" ");
cmd.append(Main.class.getName()).append(" ");
for (String arg : args) {
cmd.append(arg).append(" ");
}
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd.toString());
System.exit(0);
}
}
Dedicated to all those who say it is impossible.
This program collects all information available to reconstruct the original commandline. Then, it launches it and since it is the very same command, your application starts a second time. Then we exit the original program, the child program remains running (even under Linux) and does the very same thing.
WARNING: If you run this, be aware that it never ends creating new processes, similar to a fork bomb.

Basically, you can't. At least not in a reliable way. However, you shouldn't need to.
The can't part
To restart a Java program, you need to restart the JVM. To restart the JVM you need to
Locate the java launcher that was used. You may try with System.getProperty("java.home") but there's no guarantee that this will actually point to the launcher that was used to launch your application. (The value returned may not point to the JRE used to launch the application or it could have been overridden by -Djava.home.)
You would presumably want to honor the original memory settings etc (-Xmx, -Xms, …) so you need to figure out which settings where used to start the first JVM. You could try using ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getInputArguments() but there's no guarantee that this will reflect the settings used. This is even spelled out in the documentation of that method:
Typically, not all command-line options to the 'java' command are passed to the Java virtual machine. Thus, the returned input arguments may not include all command-line options.
If your program reads input from Standard.in the original stdin will be lost in the restart.
Lots of these tricks and hacks will fail in the presence of a SecurityManager.
The shouldn't need part
I recommend you to design your application so that it is easy to clean every thing up and after that create a new instance of your "main" class.
Many applications are designed to do nothing but create an instance in the main-method:
public class MainClass {
...
public static void main(String[] args) {
new MainClass().launch();
}
...
}
By using this pattern, it should be easy enough to do something like:
public class MainClass {
...
public static void main(String[] args) {
boolean restart;
do {
restart = new MainClass().launch();
} while (restart);
}
...
}
and let launch() return true if and only if the application was shut down in a way that it needs to be restarted.

Strictly speaking, a Java program cannot restart itself since to do so it must kill the JVM in which it is running and then start it again, but once the JVM is no longer running (killed) then no action can be taken.
You could do some tricks with custom classloaders to load, pack, and start the AWT components again but this will likely cause lots of headaches with regard to the GUI event loop.
Depending on how the application is launched, you could start the JVM in a wrapper script which contains a do/while loop, which continues while the JVM exits with a particular code, then the AWT app would have to call System.exit(RESTART_CODE). For example, in scripting pseudocode:
DO
# Launch the awt program
EXIT_CODE = # Get the exit code of the last process
WHILE (EXIT_CODE == RESTART_CODE)
The AWT app should exit the JVM with something other than the RESTART_CODE on "normal" termination which doesn't require restart.

Eclipse typically restarts after a plugin is installed. They do this using a wrapper eclipse.exe (launcher app) for windows. This application execs the core eclipse runner jar and if the eclipse java application terminates with a relaunch code, eclipse.exe restarts the workbench. You can build a similar bit of native code, shell script or another java code wrapper to achieve the restart.

Windows
public void restartApp(){
// This launches a new instance of application dirctly,
// remember to add some sleep to the start of the cmd file to make sure current instance is
// completely terminated, otherwise 2 instances of the application can overlap causing strange
// things:)
new ProcessBuilder("cmd","/c start /min c:/path/to/script/that/launches/my/application.cmd ^& exit").start();
System.exit(0);
}
/min to start script in minimized window
^& exit to close cmd window after finish
a sample cmd script could be
#echo off
rem add some sleep (e.g. 10 seconds) to allow the preceding application instance to release any open resources (like ports) and exit gracefully, otherwise the new instance could fail to start
sleep 10
set path=C:\someFolder\application_lib\libs;%path%
java -jar application.jar
sleep 10 sleep for 10 seconds

Just adding information which is not present in other answers.
If procfs /proc/self/cmdline is available
If you are running in an environment which provides procfs and therefore has the /proc file system available (which means this is not a portable solution), you can have Java read /proc/self/cmdline in order to restart itself, like this:
public static void restart() throws IOException {
new ProcessBuilder(getMyOwnCmdLine()).inheritIO().start();
}
public static String[] getMyOwnCmdLine() throws IOException {
return readFirstLine("/proc/self/cmdline").split("\u0000");
}
public static String readFirstLine(final String filename) throws IOException {
try (final BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(filename))) {
return in.readLine();
}
}
On systems with /proc/self/cmdline available, this probably is the most elegant way of how to "restart" the current Java process from Java. No JNI involved, and no guessing of paths and stuff required. This will also take care of all JVM options passed to the java binary. The command line will be exactly identical to the one of the current JVM process.
Many UNIX systems including GNU/Linux (including Android) nowadays have procfs However on some like FreeBSD, it is deprecated and being phased out. Mac OS X is an exception in the sense that it does not have procfs. Windows also does not have procfs. Cygwin has procfs but it's invisible to Java because it's only visible to applications using the Cygwin DLLs instead of Windows system calls, and Java is unaware of Cygwin.
Don't forget to use ProcessBuilder.inheritIO()
The default is that stdin / stdout / stderr (in Java called System.in / System.out / System.err) of the started Process are set to pipes which allow the currently running process to communicate with the newly started process. If you want to restart the current process, this is most likely not what you want. Instead you would want that stdin / stdout / stderr are the same as those of the current VM. This is called inherited. You can do so by calling inheritIO() of your ProcessBuilder instance.
Pitfall on Windows
A frequent use case of a restart() function is to restart the application after an update. The last time I tried this on Windows this was problematic. When overwrote the application's .jar file with the new version, the application started to misbehave and giving exceptions about the .jar file. I'm just telling, in case this is your use case. Back then I solved the issue by wrapping the application in a batch file and using a magic return value from System.exit() that I queried in the batch file and had the batch file restart the application instead.

Although this question is old and answered, I've stumbled across a problem with some of the solutions and decided to add my suggestion into the mix.
The problem with some of the solutions is that they build a single command string. This creates issues when some parameters contain spaces, especially java.home.
For example, on windows, the line
final String javaBin = System.getProperty("java.home") + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "java";
Might return something like this:C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin\java
This string has to be wrapped in quotes or escaped due to the space in Program Files. Not a huge problem, but somewhat annoying and error prone, especially in cross platform applications.
Therefore my solution builds the command as an array of commands:
public static void restart(String[] args) {
ArrayList<String> commands = new ArrayList<String>(4 + jvmArgs.size() + args.length);
List<String> jvmArgs = ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getInputArguments();
// Java
commands.add(System.getProperty("java.home") + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "java");
// Jvm arguments
for (String jvmArg : jvmArgs) {
commands.add(jvmArg);
}
// Classpath
commands.add("-cp");
commands.add(ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getClassPath());
// Class to be executed
commands.add(BGAgent.class.getName());
// Command line arguments
for (String arg : args) {
commands.add(arg);
}
File workingDir = null; // Null working dir means that the child uses the same working directory
String[] env = null; // Null env means that the child uses the same environment
String[] commandArray = new String[commands.size()];
commandArray = commands.toArray(commandArray);
try {
Runtime.getRuntime().exec(commandArray, env, workingDir);
System.exit(0);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}

If you realy need to restart your app, you could write a separate app the start it...
This page provides many different examples for different scenarios:
http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0014.html

Similar to Yoda's 'improved' answer, but with further improvements (both functional, readability, and testability). It's now safe to run, and restarts for as as many times as the amount of program arguments given.
No accumulation of JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS options.
Automatically finds main class.
Inherits current stdout/stderr.
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
if (args.length == 0)
return;
else
args = Arrays.copyOf(args, args.length - 1);
List<String> command = new ArrayList<>(32);
appendJavaExecutable(command);
appendVMArgs(command);
appendClassPath(command);
appendEntryPoint(command);
appendArgs(command, args);
System.out.println(command);
try {
new ProcessBuilder(command).inheritIO().start();
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static void appendJavaExecutable(List<String> cmd) {
cmd.add(System.getProperty("java.home") + File.separator + "bin" + File.separator + "java");
}
private static void appendVMArgs(Collection<String> cmd) {
Collection<String> vmArguments = ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getInputArguments();
String javaToolOptions = System.getenv("JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS");
if (javaToolOptions != null) {
Collection<String> javaToolOptionsList = Arrays.asList(javaToolOptions.split(" "));
vmArguments = new ArrayList<>(vmArguments);
vmArguments.removeAll(javaToolOptionsList);
}
cmd.addAll(vmArguments);
}
private static void appendClassPath(List<String> cmd) {
cmd.add("-cp");
cmd.add(ManagementFactory.getRuntimeMXBean().getClassPath());
}
private static void appendEntryPoint(List<String> cmd) {
StackTraceElement[] stackTrace = new Throwable().getStackTrace();
StackTraceElement stackTraceElement = stackTrace[stackTrace.length - 1];
String fullyQualifiedClass = stackTraceElement.getClassName();
String entryMethod = stackTraceElement.getMethodName();
if (!entryMethod.equals("main"))
throw new AssertionError("Entry point is not a 'main()': " + fullyQualifiedClass + '.' + entryMethod);
cmd.add(fullyQualifiedClass);
}
private static void appendArgs(List<String> cmd, String[] args) {
cmd.addAll(Arrays.asList(args));
}
V1.1 Bugfix: null pointer if JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS is not set
Example:
$ java -cp Temp.jar Temp a b c d e
[/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java, -cp, Temp.jar, Temp, a, b, c, d]
[/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java, -cp, Temp.jar, Temp, a, b, c]
[/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java, -cp, Temp.jar, Temp, a, b]
[/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java, -cp, Temp.jar, Temp, a]
[/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java, -cp, Temp.jar, Temp]
$

I was researching the subject myself when came across this question.
Regardless of the fact that the answer is already accepted, I would still like to offer an alternative approach for completeness. Specifically, Apache Ant served as a very flexible solution.
Basically, everything boils down to an Ant script file with a single Java execution task (refer here and here) invoked from a Java code (see here). This Java code, which can be a method launch, could be a part of the application that needs to be restarted. The application needs to have a dependency on the Apache Ant library (jar).
Whenever application needs to be restarted, it should call method launch and exit the VM. The Ant java task should have options fork and spawn set to true.
Here is an example of an Ant script:
<project name="applaucher" default="launch" basedir=".">
<target name="launch">
<java classname="package.MasinClass" fork="true" spawn="true">
<jvmarg value="-splash:splash.jpg"/>
<jvmarg value="-D other VM params"/>
<classpath>
<pathelement location="lib-1.jar" />
...
<pathelement location="lib-n.jar" />
</classpath>
</java>
</target>
</project>
The code for the launch method may look something like this:
public final void launch(final String antScriptFile) {
/* configure Ant and execute the task */
final File buildFile = new File(antScriptFile);
final Project p = new Project();
p.setUserProperty("ant.file", buildFile.getAbsolutePath());
final DefaultLogger consoleLogger = new DefaultLogger();
consoleLogger.setErrorPrintStream(System.err);
consoleLogger.setOutputPrintStream(System.out);
consoleLogger.setMessageOutputLevel(Project.MSG_INFO);
p.addBuildListener(consoleLogger);
try {
p.fireBuildStarted();
p.init();
final ProjectHelper helper = ProjectHelper.getProjectHelper();
p.addReference("ant.projectHelper", helper);
helper.parse(p, buildFile);
p.executeTarget(p.getDefaultTarget());
p.fireBuildFinished(null);
} catch (final BuildException e) {
p.fireBuildFinished(e);
}
/* exit the current VM */
System.exit(0);
}
A very convenient thing here is that the same script is used for initial application start up as well as for restarts.

Old question and all of that. But this is yet another way that offers some advantages.
On Windows, you could ask the task scheduler to start your app again for you. This has the advantage of waiting a specific amount of time before the app is restarted. You can go to task manager and delete the task and it stops repeating.
SimpleDateFormat hhmm = new SimpleDateFormat("kk:mm");
Calendar aCal = Calendar.getInstance();
aCal.add(Calendar.SECOND, 65);
String nextMinute = hhmm.format(aCal.getTime()); //Task Scheduler Doesn't accept seconds and won't do current minute.
String[] create = {"c:\\windows\\system32\\schtasks.exe", "/CREATE", "/F", "/TN", "RestartMyProg", "/SC", "ONCE", "/ST", nextMinute, "/TR", "java -jar c:\\my\\dev\\RestartTest.jar"};
Process proc = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(create, null, null);
System.out.println("Exit Now");
try {Thread.sleep(1000);} catch (Exception e){} // just so you can see it better
System.exit(0);

System.err.println("Someone is Restarting me...");
setVisible(false);
try {
Thread.sleep(600);
} catch (InterruptedException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
}
setVisible(true);
I guess you don't really want to stop the application, but to "Restart" it. For that, you could use this and add your "Reset" before the sleep and after the invisible window.

What is the best way to find the user's home directory in Java?

What is the best way to find the user's home directory in Java?
The difficulty is that the solution should be cross-platform; it should work on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, OS X, Linux, and other Unix variants. I am looking for a snippet of code that can accomplish this for all platforms, and a way to detect the platform.
Per Java bug 4787931, system property user.home does not work correctly on Windows XP, so using this system property is not an acceptable solution as it is not cross-platform.

The bug you reference (bug 4787391) has been fixed in Java 8. Even if you are using an older version of Java, the System.getProperty("user.home") approach is probably still the best. The user.home approach seems to work in a very large number of cases. A 100% bulletproof solution on Windows is hard, because Windows has a shifting concept of what the home directory means.
If user.home isn't good enough for you I would suggest choosing a definition of home directory for windows and using it, getting the appropriate environment variable with System.getenv(String).

Actually with Java 8 the right way is to use:
System.getProperty("user.home");
The bug JDK-6519127 has been fixed and the "Incompatibilities between JDK 8 and JDK 7" section of the release notes states:
Area: Core Libs / java.lang
Synopsis
The steps used to determine the user's home directory on Windows have changed to follow the Microsoft recommended approach. This change
might be observable on older editions of Windows or where registry
settings or environment variables are set to other directories. Nature
of Incompatibility
behavioral RFE
6519127
Despite the question being old I leave this for future reference.

System.getProperty("user.home");
See the JavaDoc.

The concept of a HOME directory seems to be a bit vague when it comes to Windows. If the environment variables (HOMEDRIVE/HOMEPATH/USERPROFILE) aren't enough, you may have to resort to using native functions via JNI or JNA. SHGetFolderPath allows you to retrieve special folders, like My Documents (CSIDL_PERSONAL) or Local Settings\Application Data (CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA).
Sample JNA code:
public class PrintAppDataDir {
public static void main(String[] args) {
if (com.sun.jna.Platform.isWindows()) {
HWND hwndOwner = null;
int nFolder = Shell32.CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA;
HANDLE hToken = null;
int dwFlags = Shell32.SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT;
char[] pszPath = new char[Shell32.MAX_PATH];
int hResult = Shell32.INSTANCE.SHGetFolderPath(hwndOwner, nFolder,
hToken, dwFlags, pszPath);
if (Shell32.S_OK == hResult) {
String path = new String(pszPath);
int len = path.indexOf('\0');
path = path.substring(0, len);
System.out.println(path);
} else {
System.err.println("Error: " + hResult);
}
}
}
private static Map<String, Object> OPTIONS = new HashMap<String, Object>();
static {
OPTIONS.put(Library.OPTION_TYPE_MAPPER, W32APITypeMapper.UNICODE);
OPTIONS.put(Library.OPTION_FUNCTION_MAPPER,
W32APIFunctionMapper.UNICODE);
}
static class HANDLE extends PointerType implements NativeMapped {
}
static class HWND extends HANDLE {
}
static interface Shell32 extends Library {
public static final int MAX_PATH = 260;
public static final int CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA = 0x001c;
public static final int SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT = 0;
public static final int SHGFP_TYPE_DEFAULT = 1;
public static final int S_OK = 0;
static Shell32 INSTANCE = (Shell32) Native.loadLibrary("shell32",
Shell32.class, OPTIONS);
/**
* see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762181(VS.85).aspx
*
* HRESULT SHGetFolderPath( HWND hwndOwner, int nFolder, HANDLE hToken,
* DWORD dwFlags, LPTSTR pszPath);
*/
public int SHGetFolderPath(HWND hwndOwner, int nFolder, HANDLE hToken,
int dwFlags, char[] pszPath);
}
}

Others have answered the question before me but a useful program to print out all available properties is:
for (Map.Entry<?,?> e : System.getProperties().entrySet()) {
System.out.println(String.format("%s = %s", e.getKey(), e.getValue()));
}

Alternative would be to use Apache CommonsIO FileUtils.getUserDirectory() instead of System.getProperty("user.home"). It will get you the same result and there is no chance to introduce a typo when specifying system property.
There is a big chance you already have Apache CommonsIO library in your project. Don't introduce it if you plan to use it only for getting user home directory.

As I was searching for Scala version, all I could find was McDowell's JNA code above. I include my Scala port here, as there currently isn't anywhere more appropriate.
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32._
object jna {
def getHome: java.io.File = {
if (!com.sun.jna.Platform.isWindows()) {
new java.io.File(System.getProperty("user.home"))
}
else {
val pszPath: Array[Char] = new Array[Char](WinDef.MAX_PATH)
new java.io.File(Shell32.INSTANCE.SHGetSpecialFolderPath(null, pszPath, ShlObj.CSIDL_MYDOCUMENTS, false) match {
case true => new String(pszPath.takeWhile(c => c != '\0'))
case _ => System.getProperty("user.home")
})
}
}
}
As with the Java version, you will need to add Java Native Access, including both jar files, to your referenced libraries.
It's nice to see that JNA now makes this much easier than when the original code was posted.

I would use the algorithm detailed in the bug report using System.getenv(String), and fallback to using the user.dir property if none of the environment variables indicated a valid existing directory. This should work cross-platform.
I think, under Windows, what you are really after is the user's notional "documents" directory.

If you want something that works well on windows there is a package called WinFoldersJava which wraps the native call to get the 'special' directories on Windows. We use it frequently and it works well.