New to Java

i;e searched it on google and none of the commands are working for me.
Actually i am trying to deploy the application on my local machine which is tomcat5.5.25. Everytime i run the application it says it cannot find the properties file. After doing some research i came to know i need to set JAVA_OPTS enviorment in starup.bat so it can recognize my props folder.

Anyone know how to do it. my props folder is in:
c:/program files/apache-tomcat-5.5.25/webapps/testing/props

I did something like this but then tomcat wont start

set JAVA_OPTS=-DpropDir.home=C:\program files\apache-tomcat-5.5.25\webapps\testing\props

its not working can some tell me what to do?