Symptom

For Windows installations, you can start the WebSphere server by using the Start the Server option on the WebSphere program menu. 

However, if a problem occures while starting the WebSphere server, the window opened by this option disappears so quickly that it is not possible to read the error.   

Solution

Begin by checking the log file in the \WebSphere\Appserver\logs\ servername subdirectory.  Check the dates on the logs, and check in the startServer.log and the stopServer.log to see if they contain any error messages.

For further error messages, you can run WebSphere in a command window. 

1. Open a command window and switch to the bin directory in WebSphere. 

2.Then use the command startserver servername to run the startup and capture error messages: 

C:\Documents and Settings>e: 
E:\> cd websphere\appserver\bin 
E:\WebSphere\Appserver\Bin>startserver server1 
ADMU0116I:    Tool information is being logged in file
     E:\WebSphere\Appserver\logs\server1\startServer.log
ADMU3100I:    Reading configuration for server: server1
ADMU3200I: Server launched.   Waiting for initialization status
Unrecognized option: -XX:PermSize=64m,
Unable to parse 1.2 format supplied options - 4c=-6
Usage:   java/bin/java [-options] class [args . . .]
     (to execute a class)
or    java/bin/java -jar [-options] jarfile [args . . .]
     (to execute a jar file)

In the above example, the PermSize setting was included in the configuration of a Windows server.   Since this setting applies only to Solaris servers, not Windows servers, the setting caused errors that prevented WebSphere from starting.