RFR: 6519127 : user.home property not set correctly

Tue Oct 23 12:03:24 UTC 2012

Hi,

after studying many MSDN docs, I think you are right, to use CSIDL_PROFILE.

And as I read ...
      * Note: To save space we want to avoid loading SHELL32.DLL
      * unless really necessary.  However if we do load it, we leave it
      * in memory, as it may be needed again later.
I'm pretty sure, we should not use this trick anymore.

One note from my side on Windows XP:
"HOME": not existent
"HOMEDRIVE": C:
"HOMEPATH": \Documents and Settings\username
So to get "C:\Documents and Settings\username" one has to concatenate "HOMEDRIVE" + "HOMEPATH"

-Ulf

Am 23.10.2012 09:52, schrieb Sean Chou:
> Hi Alan,
>
>      I did some search and wrote a brief, hope it helps.
>
> =====================================
>
> A brief about home directory, user profile directory, and "My
> Documents" directory of windows users.
>
> In windows NT and early, there is an assigned home directory act as a
> user's default folder to "Open and Save files"[1]. It is represented
> by environment variable "HOME", "HOMEDRIVE", "HOMEPATH". And this is
> still available in windows 7, a home directory can still be assigned
> to a user and %HOME% will report the assigned directory[7]. By
> default, HOME is set to profile directory which is "C:\Users\username"
> in vista and 7, and "C:\Documents and Settings\username" in XP(cmd ->
> set HOME).
>
> In windows 2000 and XP, "My Documents" directory is used to keep the
> user data which was kept in user home[1]. In the ways how programs
> treat "HOME" and "My Documents", it says "In other programs, the home
> folder is ignored, regardless of whether the home folder contains any
> files." This is a proof that the HOME directory is not encouraged to
> use any more. But it is still there. In windows Vista and 7, "My
> Documents" directory is becoming a virtual directory, it is seen from
> constant CSIDL_MYDOCUMENTS. It was CSIDL_PERSONAL in XP which is a
> real directory[4].
>
> Since windows XP, there is a user profile directory[2, 3]. It is
> default to "C:\Documents and Settings\username" in XP and
> "C:\Users\username" in vista and 7. User profile directory is
> available as environment variable "USERPROFILE"; it is available in
> Java by System.getenv("USERPROFILE"). USERPROFILE can be modified by
> resetting the variable. And it is available through shell function
> SHGetFolderLocation which is NOT affected by resetting the
> "USERPROFILE " variable.
>
> "Shell Folders" and shell functions
> This is totally from this artical[5]. "Shell Folders" registry key is
> a mistake in windows 95. When "roaming profile" is considered, it is
> decided to use function "SHGetSpecialFolderLocation" to get the
> folders represented in "Shell Folders". However, the key is kept as a
> shadow. And function SHGetFolderLocation is suggest to replace
> function SHGetSpecialFolderLocation in XP[6].
> So, the home directory reported by registry is a shadow of the value
> from shell API, I think the difference is caused by missed update.
> Detail to Java's implementation, there might be another difference:
> windows supports changing the location of "Desktop" directory, and
> Java takes the parent of "Desktop" from registry, this is not tested.
> The "USERPROFILE" is an environment variable which is set to the
> profile directory report by shell API, but it can be reset.
>
> Applications' default paths
> "cmd" is using profile directory as default path even "HOME" is set to
> other directory. Login through telnet will use "HOME" directory as the
> default, but Java is not using this "HOME" as user.home, it still uses
> the profile shadow in registry. But I don't have an environment to
> test domain users. I think the shell function mentions roaming
> profile, it should handle.
>
>
> [1] http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/lsm_homedir.mspx?mfr=true
> [2] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb776896(v=vs.85).aspx
> [3] Shell contant CSIDL_PROFILE is available from version5.0 which is
> windows 2000 or ME. So the profile directory might be available since
> windows 2000 before XP.
> [4] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb762494(v=vs.85).aspx
> [5] http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/03/55532.aspx
> [6] http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb762203(v=vs.85).aspx
> [7] http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/lsm_profile_homedirectory.mspx?mfr=true
>
> ============================================================
>
> So in my understanding, the "HOME" directory is obsolete since XP, and
> "My Documents" is a substitution. And the important thing is, the
> directory represented by "HOME" is not a user's home compared with
> Unix. User's home contains application data, user data, Desktop and
> others. In windows, the USERPROFILE directory is much more similar to
> act as a user home. And the current implementation is using the user
> profile directory(the parent directory of Desktop, which is the
> profile directory by default settings).
>
> About the modified in webrev, I think it is just removing an old hack
> which is obsoleted since win95.
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 5:51 PM, Alan Bateman <Alan.Bateman at oracle.com> wrote:
>> On 19/10/2012 10:11, Sean Chou wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>>       This is a fix for 651912. The fix removed the code to read
>>> user.home from registry and get profile directory instead of the
>>> parent of desktop directory. As suggested in
>>> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2003/11/03/55532.aspx from
>>> the bug page.
>>>
>>> Bug: bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6519127
>>>
>>> Webrev: http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~zhouyx/6519127/webrev.00/
>>>
>>> Please take a look.
>>>
>> Sean - any changes to the value of user.home has the potential to cause
>> issues, this is an area whether there has been a lot of ambiguity in past as
>> to where the user's home directory is, particularly with non-standard
>> configurations. 6519127 and several others have been waiting for a brave
>> person to re-examine this issue.
>>
>> Do you think you could provide a detailed write-up on this topic? I think we
>> need to understand how the home directory, as reported by the shell API,
>> might differ to the value that the registry reports, also USERPROFILE. In
>> addition we've had so many issues over the years with different
>> configurations, Windows Terminal Server, local accounts vs. accounts in the
>> domain, etc. and I think we need to understand as much as possible as what
>> might change. Sorry there is lot more work here than you might have expected
>> but this is an area where we have to be very careful.
>>
>> -Alan
>
>