Java -server argument

Answer 1

-server

Select the Java HotSpot Server VM. On a 64-bit capable jdk only the Java HotSpot Server VM is supported so the -server option is implicit. This is subject to change in a future release.

Basically, the server VM does stuff in a different way to the client VM. It has different styles of garbage collection, and it may take longer to load up (but generally has higher throughput).

Answer 2

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/vm/index.html