os path

Other than interpreting the things in the "java.class.path" java environment (system property) variable, like to try to guess the "C:" parts if there are any, there is no built-in Java property to say what the operating system installation drive is.

Nor, is there any built-in way to read the system environment variable settings. Also note that the os "installed drive" is specific to Windows operating systems.

You can try setting your own -DOS_INSTALL_DRIVE=%SYSTEM_ROOT% in the Java command line or batch file that launches your application, where in this example the %SYSTEM_ROOT% thing would be an environment variable [you] set up ahead of time, or possibly what ever environment variable that comes set with windows.

I generally use the following utility to sniff out all the currently set Java environment properties.

Code:

import java.util.Map; import java.util.Properties; import java.util.TreeMap; /** * Prints a sorted list of system properties to the stdout. * @author thein * */ public class DumpSystemProperties { public static void main(String[] args) { Properties p = System.getProperties(); Map<String, String> sortedProperties = new TreeMap<String, String>(); for (Object key : p.keySet()) { sortedProperties.put(key.toString(), p.getProperty(key.toString())); } for (String key: sortedProperties.keySet()) { System.out.println(key + ":" + sortedProperties.get(key)); } } }