Q:

Spring Beans survive application restart? 

I have a very very strange problem here.  I have a desktop application written with Spring 3.0.5-Release and Java 6.0.  I'm also using Swing for the UI. 
On startup, the application reads an application-context.xml file and instantiates a configuration bean from there, like this:
<bean id="config" class="my.blabla. Configuration">
    <property name="port" value="5555"></property>
    <property name="user" value="myUser"></property>
</bean>

In my application I'm using the properties from this Configuration bean. 
Problem is now the following:
I package the application into a jar-file and deploy it on a machine.  
I follow the following steps:

In the application-context.xml I change the property user to userA. 
Now I run the application.  Everything runs fine.  In the log-file property user shows userA.
I close the application. 
In the application-context.xml I change the property user to userB.
I run the application.  BUT In the log-file property user shows userA.

A few more infos.  This does NOT happen when I debug the application.  It only appears when the application is packaged and executed from command line. 
I close my application via the default close button and have set this:
 setDefaultCloseOperation(javax.swing. WindowConstants. EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

Any idea, what is happening here?  Is there a chance that spring beans somehow survive an application restart?  Is there a chance that the java process is not shutdown? 
I'm getting crazy.  Any help is highly appreciated. 

A:

Are you running from the JAR file?   Is the application context XML in that JAR file?   Did you re-create the JAR after you change the bean from userA to userB?   That would explain the mysterious behavior. 
Spring beans don't survive a restart, any more than any in-memory value does.   Your expectations don't match reality.