How to start an application on the server from a webpage

Answer 1

You need to read up on CGI Scripts.

It's also possible that PHP is already available on your server, but I wouldn't recommend using it unless you're already familiar with it and know all of the security pitfalls, which from the question appears very unlikely.

Answer 2

You would be better of using a server side script with your apache installation to start the executable. This is probably easier with PHP (which should be easy to install if it isnt already), here are the commands. As long as you dont actually use any input with the page it should be safe enough.