BlackBerry ESS NullArgumentException

I’ve been playing around with BlackBerry development.  I’ve been doing various tutorials etc.

One of the things they’ve got is an Email Server Simulator (ESS).  This comes installed with the JDE.  The idea is that this ESS will send/receive emails and hand them off to the device simulator.

I ran into some problems, though.  I could launch the ESS config screen and whether I chose Connected or Standalone mode, after I configured it and hit “Launch” it would crash.  The console window shows a NullArgumentException.

After reinstalling the JDE, verifying my Java etc etc I finally figured out the issue.

I’m running Windows7 and the ESS needed to create/modify files in Program Files.  Something that a normal user couldn’t do.  I ran it as an Administrator and everything seems to be golden now.