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Asked: 2026-05-12T11:51:57+00:00

(I have a problem that I illustrated in this question but had no correct

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(I have a problem that I illustrated in this question but had no correct answers. I refined my problem and tried to edit the initial question to reflect that but I guess because of the way SO displays unanswered questions it lost momentum and there is no way to revive it. So I am posting my correct question again).

I have a file that resides on a shared network location :

"\\KUROSAVVAS-PC\Users\kuroSAVVAS\Desktop\New     Folder\Warsaw    Panorama.JPG"

(The spaces are there intentionally)

The following code :

import java.awt.Desktop;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

public class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            String s = "\\\\KUROSAVVAS-PC\\Users\\kuroSAVVAS\\Desktop\\New     Folder\\Warsaw    Panorama.jpg";
            File f = new File(s);
            System.out.println(f.exists());
            Desktop.getDesktop().open(f);
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

}

Prints to the console that the file exists (System.out.println(f.exists());) but throws this exception! :

java.io.IOException: Failed to open file:////KUROSAVVAS-PC/Users/kuroSAVVAS/Desktop/New%20%20%20%20%20Folder/Warsaw%20%20%20%20Panorama.jpg. Error message: The system cannot find the file specified.

    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 Test.main(Test.java:13)

Has anyone any idea why something like this may happen? I have tried everything from creating URIs to decoding them afterwards… Nothing works.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It seems that there is a bug when you try to access a resource on a network drive with spaces in the path. See this entry in Sun’s bug database.

    Since the bug is already a year old, I don’t think you’ll get a fix anytime soon. Try the latest VM. If that doesn’t help, try to get the source for WDesktopPeer. Instead of encoding the path, try to keep it as it was (with backslashes and all) and put quotes around it. That might work.

    [EDIT] Specifically, don’t replace \ with /, do not prepend file:// and leave the spaces as they are (instead of replacing them with %20)

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