The target VM is unable to start when the SunCommandLineLauncher is used and jdwp.dll cannot be found on the current path. This can be seen when running jdb with an absolute path, for example:

 H:\work>j:\jdk1.3\win32\bin\jdb Hello
Initializing jdb...
> run
run Hello
VM initialization failed for: j:\jdk1.3\win32\jre\bin\java -Xdebug -Xnoagent -Dj
ava.compiler=NONE -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_shmem,address=javadebug,suspend=y Hello


HotSpot Client VM warning: Setting of property "java.compiler" is ignored
Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not find -Xrun library: jdwp.dll
Fatal error:

 Target VM failed to initialize.