Desktop.open() Problem

Question

I recently put together an application that relied heavily on the Desktop.open( ) method and several other methods from the Desktop class. However, all of a sudden the Desktop.open() does not work. I believe I read some where that this was due to the ShellExecute function or dll or something like that.
However, since my app is targetted at the Windows platform I resorted to using windows Explorer to launch the system default applications for files using a the code below
public static void openFile(File file) {
  try {
    Runtime runtime = Runtime.getRuntime();
    runtime.exec( "explorer.exe \"" + file.getAbsolutePath() + "\"" );
  } catch(IOException) {
    ioe.printStackTrace();
    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Could Not Open File Location: " + file.getAbsolutePath());
}The code works as expected, but my problem is that I am loosing cross-platform functionality.
Can any point my to solution to this Desktop.open( ) problem, or probably add the my list platform dependent launch procedures so at least the code works on Windows,Linux and Mac.
ICE

Answer 1

Thanks Andrew,
I've do a more simple example of the problem. I create two files on "\\fiuu\proyectosShared", one called "test.txt" and the other one called "te st.txt". I execute your exact source for the who paths whith these results:
File f = new File("//fiuu/proyectosShared/test.txt");
System.out.println(f + "  exists: " + f.exists());
dt.open(f);
RESULT:
\\fiuu\proyectosShared\test.txt  exists: true
(notepads opens the file)The second test does'nt work:
File f = new File("//fiuu/proyectosShared/te st.txt");
System.out.println(f + "  exists: " + f.exists());
dt.open(f);
RESULT:
\\fiuu\proyectosShared\te st.txt  exists: true
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: Failed to open file:////fiuu/proyectosShared/te%20st.txt. Error message: El sistema no puede hallar la ruta especificada.
     at sun.awt.windows.WDesktopPeer.ShellExecute(WDesktopPeer.java:59)
     at sun.awt.windows.WDesktopPeer.open(WDesktopPeer.java:36)
     at java.awt.Desktop.open(Desktop.java:254)
     at DesktopTest.main(DesktopTest.java:14)
(translation of error message: System can't find specified path)I've also done some tests with Desktop.browse(file.toURI), and some others with no success.
Something curious: try to execute Runtime.getRuntime().exec("explorer " + f.getAbsolutePath) for a file that has thow white spaces on his name....
File f = new File("//fiuu/proyectosShared/te  st.txt");//with two white spaces
System.out.println(f + "  exists: " + f.exists());
Runtime.getRuntime().exec("explorer " + f.getAbsolutePath());
\\fiuu\proyectosShared\te  st.txt  exists: trueSystem says:
Explorador de Windows
La ruta '\\fiuu\proyectosShared\te st.txt' no existe o no es un directorio.
Aceptar  
(spanish version of File not found alert message)Note that in alert message one white space of filename is lost!
Thanks again
Edited by: pakomail on Nov 24, 2008 6:12 AM