Local Java Applications that are running as a Windows Service can not be monitored with Java VisualVM without some extra efforts. I recently tried to monitor a Tomcat service but I could not find it after starting Java VisualVM. I wondered what was wrong and found the best answer in an old Netbeans Profiler Blog post: "Monitoring Java Processes Running As a Windows Service". The reason why I did not see the Tomcat Service in the application tree was: