Trouble Setting Windows Environment Variables

Question

My environment:
Windows XP Professional
Intellij 6.0.4
JDK 1.4.
I am seeing some very weird behavior when I try to get/set Environment Variables in Windows XP. I use the following code to read the variables:
Process p = r.exec( "cmd.exe /c set" ); I create an environment varialbe through the Windows control panel, and it does not show up when I execute the above command. However, when I close my IDE and reopen it and run the same code, the variable appears. How is this possible? I am using the Windows XP cmd.exe in my program to read the variables. When I open a DOS window and type the same command, my variable is there.
This is driving me crazy.
i want my program to do some work, but then check a system variable to see if it should continue. I want a user to be able to stop processing by setting the environmen variable to true.
Thanks!
Nathan

Answer 1

Runtime.exec has a lot of overloadings. Two of them
allows you to specify the environment variables.
exec
public Process exec(String[] cmdarray,
String[] envp,
File dir)
throws IOExceptionExecutes the specified command and
arguments in a separate process with the specified
environment and working directory.
cmdarray - array containing the command to call and
its arguments.
envp - array of strings, each element of which has
environment variable settings in format name=value.
dir - the working directory of the subprocess, or null
if the subprocess should inherit the working directory
of the current process.
I had this sample program:
public class SetVarExample {
public static void main (String[] args) throws Exception {
     String[] cmd_env= new String[] {"password="+"ABCD","Path=C:\\Sun\\AppServer\\jdk\\bin"};
     String cmd = "cmd /c SET ";
     Runtime.getRuntime().exec(cmd,cmd_env);
System.out.println( "Finish ...." );
I tried it in a command prompt. But looks like when the program exits, it's a whole new process and so it does not retain the env variables set in the java program.
Any suggestions? Am I doing it worng?
thanks