I agree 100% with [@ingo-burk][1]'s answer. Here are a few points on top of that. You could load the paths from a `.properties` file quite easily, for example given a properties file on the classpath: # config.properties paths = C:/xampp/xampp-control.exe|C:/Program Files/xampp/xampp-control.exe|C:/Program Files (x86)/xampp/xampp-control.exe and this Java code: private static final String PROPERTIES_FILENAME = "player.properties"; private static final String PATHS_PROPERTY = "paths"; private static final String ITEM_SEPARATOR = "|"; private String[] getPaths(String filename, String propName) throws IOException { InputStream input = this.getClass().getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream(filename); if (input == null) { return new String[0]; } Properties prop = new Properties(); prop.load(input); input.close(); return prop.getProperty(propName, "").split(ITEM_SEPARATOR); } private String[] getPaths(String filename) throws IOException { return getPaths(filename, PATHS_PROPERTY); } String[] getPaths() throws IOException { return getPaths(PROPERTIES_FILENAME, PATHS_PROPERTY); } Notice that I changed all the path separators from `\\` to `/`. Java figures out the correct path separator in the operating system, and it's simpler to type this way. Btw, if the executable is always called `xampp-control.exe` then perhaps you can put that name in its own property, and remove the duplication from `paths`. [1]: https://codereview.stackexchange.com/users/41406/ingo-burk