diff --git a/all/pom.xml b/all/pom.xml
index 43362f4dd2..f685ee900e 100644
--- a/all/pom.xml
+++ b/all/pom.xml
@@ -293,7 +293,7 @@
             <goals>
               <goal>run</goal>
             </goals>
-            <configuration combine.self="override">
+            <configuration>
               <target>
                 <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" />
                 <propertyselector property="versions" match="^(${project.groupId}:(?!netty-example)[^:]+:jar)$" select="\1" />
diff --git a/example/pom.xml b/example/pom.xml
index 36bd3530b1..ad5fb3bf6f 100644
--- a/example/pom.xml
+++ b/example/pom.xml
@@ -103,18 +103,21 @@
 
   <build>
     <plugins>
+      <!-- run-example.sh invokes this plugin to launch an example. -->
       <plugin>
-        <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
+        <groupId>kr.motd.maven</groupId>
+        <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
         <configuration>
-          <target>
-            <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" />
-            <propertyregex
-              property="mergedArgs" regexp="[\r\n\s]+" replace=" " global="true"
-              input="${argLine.common} ${argLine.bootcp} ${argLine.leak} ${argLine.coverage} ${argLine.example}" />
-            <java classname="${exampleClass}" classpathref="maven.runtime.classpath" fork="true">
-              <jvmarg line="${mergedArgs}"/>
-            </java>
-          </target>
+          <executable>${java.home}/bin/java</executable>
+          <commandlineArgs>
+            ${argLine.common}
+            ${argLine.bootcp}
+            -classpath %classpath
+            ${argLine.leak}
+            ${argLine.coverage}
+            ${argLine.example}
+            ${exampleClass}
+          </commandlineArgs>
         </configuration>
       </plugin>
     </plugins>
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 2feb1aec00..436ea896c3 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -857,7 +857,7 @@
             <goals>
               <goal>run</goal>
             </goals>
-            <configuration combine.self="override">
+            <configuration>
               <target>
                 <taskdef resource="net/sf/antcontrib/antlib.xml" />
 
@@ -1070,6 +1070,11 @@
           <artifactId>maven-hawtjni-plugin</artifactId>
           <version>1.10</version>
         </plugin>
+        <plugin>
+          <groupId>kr.motd.maven</groupId>
+          <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
+          <version>1.0.0.Final</version>
+        </plugin>
 
         <!-- Workaround for the 'M2E plugin execution not covered' problem.
              See: http://wiki.eclipse.org/M2E_plugin_execution_not_covered -->
diff --git a/run-example.sh b/run-example.sh
index ed99953c55..9a188accde 100755
--- a/run-example.sh
+++ b/run-example.sh
@@ -91,5 +91,5 @@ fi
 
 cd "`dirname "$0"`"/example
 echo "[INFO] Running: $EXAMPLE ($EXAMPLE_CLASS $EXAMPLE_ARGS)"
-exec mvn -nsu compile antrun:run -Dcheckstyle.skip=true -Dantfile=src/antrun/run-example.xml -DargLine.example="$EXAMPLE_ARGS" -DexampleClass="$EXAMPLE_CLASS"
+exec mvn -q -nsu compile exec:exec -Dcheckstyle.skip=true -DargLine.example="$EXAMPLE_ARGS" -DexampleClass="$EXAMPLE_CLASS"