As far as i can tell, you can only profile a running application using VisualVM.
Does anyone know of a way to profile the launch and startup of a java application us
Are you setting up the profiling using the `-Xrunjdwp" command-line option? If so, that option has a "suspend" parameter for just this purpose:
True if the target VM is to be suspended immediately before the main class is loaded; false otherwise.
Example from my own config:
-Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,address=8000,server=y,suspend=n
I use this with the YourKit profiler, but I think the principle is the same.