Question

I’m currently writing a Java program that can open .exe programs on my PC, like MS Word for example.
I am having a problem though, because Runtime.getRuntime().exec() will only successfully open certain programs. I have used the exact same code for all the programs, but regardless, some programs won’t open.

Here is my code for a program I downloaded, Picasa 3:

class picasaHandler implements ActionListener
{
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent r)
    {
        try 
        {
            Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c start Picasa3.exe");

        }
        catch (IOException t)
        {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null,
                    "Sorry, could not find Picasa 3");
        }
    }
}

So my question is, why won’t Runtime.getRuntime().exec() run all the programs I use it on, and how do I run programs like Picasa 3, that I cannot run at this moment with this method.

Answer 1

I’m guessing that Picasa3.exe is not on your %PATH% anywhere so it doesn’t know how to load it. Have you tried specifying the full path to Picasa3.exe?

Runtime.getRuntime().exec("cmd /c \"c:\\program files (x86)\\Google\\Picasa3\\Picasa3.exe\"")