<pre><code>cmd /C "myshortcut1.lnk"
cmd /C "myshortcut2.lnk"
</code></pre>

<p>Works, but gives me a pop-up DOS window which, when closed, kills my two loaded programs.  Same is true for this:</p>

<pre><code>start /B cmd /C "1.lnk"
start /B cmd /C "2.lnk"
start /B cmd /C "3.lnk"
start /B cmd /C "4.lnk"
</code></pre>

The MySQL JDBC driver times out after 8 hours of inactivity and drops the connection.
You can set
```
autoReconnect=true
```
in your JDBC URL, and this causes the driver to reconnect if you try to query after it has disconnected.  But this has side effects; for instance session state and transactions cannot be maintained over a new connection.
If you use
```
autoReconnect
```
, the JDBC connection is reestablished, but it doesn't automatically re-execute your query that got the exception.  So you do need to catch
```
SQLException
```
in your application and retry queries.
Read
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/connector-j-reference-configuration-properties.html
for more details.