How to pass Properties to jar from Powershell?

Take a look at my answer to this question. Note how you can use echoargs.exe to diagnose these sort of problems. Most likely the fix would be to quote the parameter e.g.:

java -jar "-Duser.language=en" any.jar

You can test that using echoargs (from PowerShell Community Extensions):

echoargs -jar "-Duser.language=en" any.jarArg 0 is <-jar>Arg 1 is <-Duser.language=en>Arg 2 is <any.jar>

Using quotes works fine for me in PowerShell on Windows 7.

java "-Dmy.property=value" -jar myjar.jar

Be careful: the jar name must be placed right after -jar, and arguments placed after -jar myjar.jar will be passed to the program inside the jarFile.

Try launching instead using the following pattern:

java -Duser.language=en -jar any.jar

That assumes that user.language is meant as a system property. If you meant it as a command line argument, change that to:

java -jar any.jar -Duser.language=en

I am actually surprised that the command line you mentioned works at all outside of powershell (though I have confirmed that it works fine for me too, even on Linux) and it is also a little strange that things would work differently inside and outside of powershell.

From java -help:

Usage: java [-options] class [args...]                            (to execute a class)                           or  java [-options] -jar jarfile [args...]                     (to execute a jar file)                     where options include:...    -D<name>=<value>                  set a system property...

So basically you should always put the JAR filename directly after the -jar command line option, and any JVM options (such as setting system properties with -D) before.