Is there a way in Java to determine if a path is valid without attempting to create a file?

This would check for the existance of the directory as well.

File file = new File("c:\\cygwin\\cygwin.bat");
if (!file.isDirectory())
   file = file.getParentFile();
if (file.exists()){
    ...
}

It seems like file.canWrite() does not give you a clear indication if you have permissions to write to the directory.

Path class introduced in Java 7 adds new alternatives, like the following:
(Does not work properly under Linux - always returns true)

/**
 * <pre>
 * Checks if a string is a valid path.
 * Null safe.
 *  
 * Calling examples:
 *    isValidPath("c:/test");      //returns true
 *    isValidPath("c:/te:t");      //returns false
 *    isValidPath("c:/te?t");      //returns false
 *    isValidPath("c/te*t");       //returns false
 *    isValidPath("good.txt");     //returns true
 *    isValidPath("not|good.txt"); //returns false
 *    isValidPath("not:good.txt"); //returns false
 * </pre>
 */
public static boolean isValidPath(String path) {
    try {
        Paths.get(path);
    } catch (InvalidPathException | NullPointerException ex) {
        return false;
    }
    return true;
}

File.getCanonicalPath() is quite useful for this purpose. IO exceptions are thrown for certain types of invalid filenames (e.g. CON, PRN, *?* in Windows) when resolving against the OS or file system. However, this only serves as a preliminary check; you will still need to handle other failures when actually creating the file (e.g. insufficient permissions, lack of drive space, security restrictions).