BUG: System.getProperty("user.home") Returns Java Home Directory (221206)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual J++ 6.0
  • Microsoft virtual machine
This article was previously published under Q221206

SYMPTOMS

According to the documentation, System.getProperty("user.home") should return a String containing the user's home directory. Instead, the Microsoft virtual machine (Microsoft VM) returns the Java home directory, which is also returned by a call to System.getProperty("java.home").

RESOLUTION

While there are no known pure Java workarounds, there are a couple of things to try using Win32 code. To get the user's home directory, you could do the following:
  • Use the USERPROFILE environment variable in Windows NT to determine the user's home directory by making a JDirect call to the Win32 API function GetEnvironmentVariable( ). (For Windows 9x users, require the user to set USERPROFILE on boot.)
  • Use Win32's GetWindowsDirectory( ) and WFC's getUserName( ) to find the user's home directory.
  • Use WFC's getUserName( ) method to create a directory under "C:\A_KNOWN_DIRECTORY\[username]".

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a bug in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/20/2003
Keywords:kbBug kbdocfix kbFAQ kbnofix KB221206
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.