I am using JBoss 4.04 installed with EJB 3.0

I have an application that I am trying to deploy in an EAR, and in this application I have an MBean that tries to dynamically load a non-EJB class as JBoss is starting up. The MBean basically looks like this:

@Service(objectName="jboss.mx:service=ClassPreloadService")
@Management(ClassPreloadManagement.class)
public class ClassPreloadService implements ClassPreloadManagement {

 public void start() throws Exception {
 Class.forName("com.example.MyClass");
 }
}

However, MyClass uses a third-party jar. If I put this third-party jar in %JBOSS_HOME%/server/default/lib, add the environment variable JBOSS_CLASSPATH to Windows, and set it to be %JBOSS_HOME%/server/default/lib/third-party.jar then I can get the class to load. But I'm pretty sure that this is a hack.

I also have third-party.jar in my EAR file, but it can't seem to find it there. Even if I add this line to my application.xml file:

<module>
 <java>
 third-party.jar
 </java>
</module>

Please, how can I get this class to load at startup without resorting to putting the jar in %JBOSS_HOME%/server/default/lib ? Or is that really the proper way to do it? Thanks for your help!