I traced which files eclipse.exe tries to access during full build on windows using sysinternals process monitor. Turns out eclipse tries to open images and . xml files relative to c:\ for example C:\icons\annotation_obj.png

Here is a summary of files searched at wrong locations:

Why is that a problem? On the one hand it is wasted time to look at wrong locations in the file system - but that is almost non measurable. On the other hand if those files would exist those wrong files could be used - leading to unwanted behavior.