There is a solution to this that does not require to specify the path of the jar file inside the .bat. This means the jar can be moved around in the filesystem with no changes, as long as the .bat file is always located in the same directory as the jar. The .bat code is: java -jar %~dp0myjarfile.jar %* Basically %0 would expand to the .bat full path, and %~dp0 expands to the .bat full path except the filename. So %~dp0myjarfile.jar is the full path of the myjarfile.jar colocated with the .bat file. %* will take all the arguments given to the .bat and pass it to the Java program. (see: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/percent.mspx?mfr=true )