Maybe java.lang.Process could help here ..

The ProcessBuilder.start() and Runtime.exec methods create a native process and return an instance of a subclass of Process that can be used to control the process and obtain information about it. The class Process provides methods for performing input from the process, performing output to the process, waiting for the process to complete, checking the exit status of the process, and destroying (killing) the process.

I've made a test java program which spawns another process. When java program exits, the spawned process is still alive. So what is the problem? Anyway, in case of trouble you always can spawn a shell (.bat) file and spawn your process from it.

http://www.rgagnon.com/javadetails/java-0014.html

import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.nio.file.Paths;

public class CmdExec {

public static void main(String args[]) {
    try {
        // enter code here

        Process p = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(
            Paths.get(System.getenv("windir"), "system32", "tree.com /A").toString()
        );

        // enter code here

        try(BufferedReader input = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(p.getInputStream()))) {
            String line;

            while ((line = input.readLine()) != null) {
                System.out.println(line);
            }
        }

    } catch (Exception err) {
        err.printStackTrace();
    }
  }
}

You can get the local path using System properties or a similar approach.

http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/environment/sysprop.html

Creating a new "java" process from java is not possible since two processes can't share one JVM. (See this question and the accepted answer).

If you can live with creating a new Thread instead of a Process you can do it with a custom ClassLoader. It is as close you can get to a new process. All static and final fields will be reinitialized!

Also note that the "ServerStart class (for the example below) must be in the class path of the current executing JVM):

Copypublic static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
    // start the server
    start("ServerStart", "arg1", "arg2");
}

private static void start(final String classToStart, final String... args) {

    // start a new thread
    new Thread(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            try {
                // create the custom class loader
                ClassLoader cl = new CustomClassLoader();

                // load the class
                Class<?> clazz = cl.loadClass(classToStart);

                // get the main method
                Method main = clazz.getMethod("main", args.getClass());

                // and invoke it
                main.invoke(null, (Object) args);

            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
    }).start();
}

And this is the custom class loader:

Copyprivate static class CustomClassLoader extends URLClassLoader {
    public CustomClassLoader() {
        super(new URL[0]);
    }

    protected java.lang.Class<?> findClass(String name) 
    throws ClassNotFoundException {
        try{
            String c = name.replace('.', File.separatorChar) +".class";
            URL u = ClassLoader.getSystemResource(c);
            String classPath = ((String) u.getFile()).substring(1);
            File f = new File(classPath);

            FileInputStream fis = new FileInputStream(f);
            DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(fis);

            byte buff[] = new byte[(int) f.length()];
            dis.readFully(buff);
            dis.close();

            return defineClass(name, buff, 0, buff.length, (CodeSource) null);

        } catch(Exception e){
            throw new ClassNotFoundException(e.getMessage(), e);
        }
    }
}