Properties vs. Preferences

[Tim Lovern]

I am trying to understand, or at least gain some insight, on when to use properties and when to use preferences.
I'm drawn to the fact that preferences is set up to use XML. Plus the backing store can be LDAP, or whatever.
However, it seems that it is more complex to set up and there are more things to code for than using properties.
Does anyone have any insight, or experiences with both that they are willing to share?
We need to determine what the standard will be within our organization. (I'm involved in the first JAVA project for our company.) The decisions I make now will impact future development, so I'd like to get it reasonbly right so that we won't refactor it into a completely different design when all is said and done.
Thanks in advance!
Tim.

[Joel McNary]

I am just starting to look at the Preferences API, so I don't quite know what to make of it. It looks like the way to go, and in a couple of months I will almost certainly be using it. Properties has the advantage of being smaller and easier to understand, but for future heavy development, I would suggest using Preferences.

[Don Kiddick]

Preferences is only available since 1.4 If you're using 1.4 I would use preferences. I believe Preferences is supposed to supercede Properties. It is much more powerful and really not difficult to use.
Big D.