Trying to run simple executable from Windows 2000

Question

I have tried the following code, but it does not work.
try
String[] cmd = new String[3];
cmd[0] = "cmd.exe" ;
cmd[1] = "/C" ;
cmd[2] = "test.exe";
Runtime rt = Runtime.getRuntime();
Process proc = rt.exec(cmd);
However if I replace 'cmd' with ' "notepad" ' the notepad lauches properly.
No exceptions are thrown so appears to be functioning, but the command window never opens and prompts the user for input (function particular to test.exe)
I also get the same response when I replace 'cmd' with ' "cmd" ')
Any Help would be greatly appreciated
Greg

Answer 1

If you are trying to exec a process that does some amount of console intput/output then you need to drain the spawned process' output pipes: you need to create and start two threads that will do
process.getInputStream ();
and
process.getErrorStream ();and read from those continuously. Without that, the spawned process may block.
This is somewhat of a Java FAQ. Read
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2000/jw-1229-traps.html
for more useful details.
Note that notepad.exe does not do any console I/O and that's why it seems to work better.
Vlad.