To see basic management demos, use the following command (all on one line): java -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.port=1090 -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.ssl=false -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote.authenticate=false -jar "%JAVA_HOME%/demo/jfc/Java2D/Java2Demo.jar" This will launch one the the standard Java GUI demos, but will enable the included instramentation so you can manage the application. Note that "%JAVA_HOME%" is the Windows environment variable "JAVA_HOME", and it should be set to JDK's directory. On my computer this is set to: JAVA_HOME=C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.6.0_18 Also note the forward slashes; that works fine on modern Windows but for older versions you may need to use backslashes instead. So what does that command do? It runs the demo JAR file, enabling managment on localhost port 1090, not requiring SSL or any authentication. Now from a different window (or even host) try: java -jar "%JAVA_HOME%/demo/management/JTop/JTop.jar" localhost:1090 This should use the JTop demo to show a list of all running Java threads in the demo, updated every few seconds. Not terribly interesting. Finally, from yet another window, try: jconsole localhost:1090 This should load the basic Java management console application bundled with the JDK.