It's curious to see how many applications are not able to correctly determine the user's profile path on Windows. Nearly all Java based applications are affected [if they use System.getProperty(), not System.getenv()]—and that since December 2002!

Just change your desktop's folder path to a different location and you'll see which application is affected—because it moves its settings file(s) location too. ;-)

• Java Bug ID 4787931: “System property ‘user.home’ does not correspond to ‘USERPROFILE’ (win)”
• Java 2 Platform SE 5.0: “java.lang.System.getProperty()”
• Java 2 Platform SE 5.0: “java.lang.System.getenv()”
• Microsoft Developer Network: “Shell Constants, Enumerations, and Flags: CSIDL”

Affected applications

An incomplete list of affected Java based applications:

• CIP4 JDF Editor: “EDITOR-173: Settings file (Editor.ini) is not created in the roaming part of the user's profile”
• FreeMind
• Eclipse IDE