Every thread has a priority. Threads with higher priority are executed in preference to threads with lower priority. Each thread may or may not also be marked as a daemon. When code running in some thread creates a new Thread object, the new thread has its priority initially set equal to the priority of the creating thread, and is a daemon thread if and only if the creating thread is a daemon.
When a Java Virtual Machine starts up, there is usually a single non-daemon thread (which typically calls the method named main of some designated class). The Java Virtual Machine continues to execute threads until either of the following occurs:
The exit method of class Runtime has been called and the security manager has permitted the exit operation to take place. All threads that are not daemon threads have died, either by returning from the call to the run method or by throwing an exception that propagates beyond the run method. Marks this thread as either a daemon thread or a user thread. The Java Virtual Machine exits when the only threads running are all daemon threads.