Java can't find main class when manifest has certain JARs on it

Question

I recently wrote an Ant script that builds my application and jars it up, creating a manifest in the process. The manifest specifies the main class and a classpath that mentions other jars that exist in the same directory. Everything works as expected and I am able to run the program using "java -jar abc.jar".
However, I recently started using classes in my program that come from a jar that should (according to the company I work for) reside in a central location rather than each application having its own copy. So, I changed my build script to reference those shared jars in a common location. But now when I run "java -jar abc.jar", I get a java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.example.Main. If I edit the jar's manifest and manually remove the new jars from the classpath, the ClassNotFoundException error goes away (although obviously that causes other problems.) Is there something about adding those new jars to the manifest classpath that would prevent Java from finding my main class? My manifest looks something like this and the last two jars (the ones with the absolute paths) are the jars that seem to be the root of the problem.
Manifest-Version: 1.0
Ant-Version: Apache Ant 1.7.0
Created-By: 1.5.0_04-b05 (Sun Microsystems Inc.)
Main-Class: com.uprr.app.rsa.Main
Class-Path: acegi-security-1.0.6.jar commons-codec-1.4.jar commons-htt
pclient-3.1.jar commons-lang-2.4.jar commons-logging-1.1.1.jar common
s-pool-1.5.4.jar dom4j-1.6.1.jar jakarta-oro-2.0.8.jar jaxen-1.1.1.ja
r jibx-run-1.2.1.jar joda-time-1.6.jar jsr173_1.0_api.jar log4j-1.2.1
5.jar opensaml-1.1.jar spring-2.5.2.jar stax-api-1.0.1.jar wstx-asl-3
.2.9.jar xmf-3.0.2.jar xmlsec-1.4.1.jar C:\software\tibco\ems\clients
\java\jms.jar C:\software\tibco\ems\clients\java\tibjms.jarAny ideas?
Brandon

Answer 1

I still don't know why giving the absolute classpath entry like that would cause Java to be unable to find the jar's main class, but I did make an interesting discovery. If I give the absolute path without the drive letter, is able to find the main class again. Something like this won't work...
Class-Path: C:\software\tibco\ems\clients\java\tibjms.jarBut something like this will...
Class-Path: \software\tibco\ems\clients\java\tibjms.jarBut I'd still like to know why Java doesn't accept drive letters when running on a Windows machine. After all, what if my manifest needed to reference a jar that was on a different drive, like a network drive (since this whole problem came up as a result of shared common jars that need to exist outside of the project.)