NoClassDefFoundError while trying to run my jar with java.exe -jar...what's wrong?

The -jar option is mutually exclusive of -classpath. See an old description here

-jar

Execute a program encapsulated in a JAR file. The first argument is the name of a JAR file instead of a startup class name. In order for this option to work, the manifest of the JAR file must contain a line of the form Main-Class: classname. Here, classname identifies the class having the public static void main(String[] args) method that serves as your application's starting point.

See the Jar tool reference page and the Jar trail of the Java Tutorial for information about working with Jar files and Jar-file manifests.

When you use this option, the JAR file is the source of all user classes, and other user class path settings are ignored.

A quick and dirty hack is to append your classpath to the bootstrap classpath:

-Xbootclasspath/a:path

Specify a colon-separated path of directires, JAR archives, and ZIP archives to append to the default bootstrap class path.

However, as @Dan rightly says, the correct solution is to ensure your JARs Manifest contains the classpath for all JARs it will need.

You can omit the -jar option and start the jar file like this:

java -cp MyJar.jar;C:\externalJars\* mainpackage.MyMainClass