Issues with CATALINA_OPTS in tomcat 7 - tomcat7

Question

I am trying to set a couple of properties in my catalina.bat file.
set "CATALINA_OPTS=-Denvironment.properties.location=D:\Office\IR\irEnvironmentProperties\environment.properties"
CATALINA_OPTS="%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dappconfig.dir=D:\Office\IR\IR\appconfig -Dappconfig.farm=dev -Dir.log.dir=D:\Office\IR\irlogs -Denvironment.properties.location=D:\Office\IR\irEnvironmentProperties\environment.properties"
rem set appconfig.dir=D:\Office\IR\IR\appconfig
rem set appconfig.farm=dev
rem set ir.log.dir=D:\Office\IR\irlogs
Above are all combinations I tried but I am not able to shake off the problem that environment.properties file not found.
On first line I also tried removing the surrounding double quotes.
The directory paths are correct I can access the correct dir by simply pasting the path on browser or windows run prompt.
What is the correct way to set CATALINA_OPTS in tomcat? Please point me to some beginner tutorial on this, if possible.
###EDIT###
I have tomcat in standalone mode(downloaded a zip file, NO windows installer).
Stack trace:
SEVERE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'envPropertiesLoader' defined in class path resource [application-context.xml]: Cannot create inner bean 'util:properties#4589632c' of type [org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean] while setting bean property 'arguments'; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'util:properties#4589632c': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: "D:\Office\IR\irEnvironmentProperties\environment.properties" (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveInnerBean(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:281)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveValueIfNecessary(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:120)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1360)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1118)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:517)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:294)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:225)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:284)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:197)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.invokeBeanFactoryPostProcessors(AbstractApplicationContext.java:649)
at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:451)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:383)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:283)
at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:111)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:4994)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5492)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:901)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:877)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:649)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:1081)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig$DeployWar.run(HostConfig.java:1877)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:471)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'util:properties#4589632c': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.io.FileNotFoundException: "D:\Office\IR\irEnvironmentProperties\environment.properties" (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1455)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.BeanDefinitionValueResolver.resolveInnerBean(BeanDefinitionValueResolver.java:270)
... 29 more
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: "D:\Office\IR\irEnvironmentProperties\environment.properties" (The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect)
at java.io.FileInputStream.open(Native Method)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:146)
at java.io.FileInputStream.<init>(FileInputStream.java:101)
at sun.net.www.protocol.file.FileURLConnection.connect(FileURLConnection.java:90)
at sun.net.www.protocol.file.FileURLConnection.getInputStream(FileURLConnection.java:188)
at org.springframework.core.io.UrlResource.getInputStream(UrlResource.java:125)
at org.springframework.core.io.support.PropertiesLoaderSupport.loadProperties(PropertiesLoaderSupport.java:181)
at org.springframework.core.io.support.PropertiesLoaderSupport.mergeProperties(PropertiesLoaderSupport.java:161)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean.createInstance(PropertiesFactoryBean.java:113)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean.createProperties(PropertiesFactoryBean.java:98)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(PropertiesFactoryBean.java:69)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1514)
at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1452)
... 32 more

Answer 1

From where are you setting these variables...
I think the first option set (with double quotes) shall work...
Try adding this variable to setenv.bat file in \bin\setenv.bat file...
Alternately, you could specify this in startup.bat as well (If you are using this script for managing tomcat

Answer 2

The recommended place to set environment variables such as CATALINA_OPTS is bin/setenv.bat file, as documented in RUNNING.txt.
For many system properties it is possible to set then in conf/catalina.properties file. All properties listed there are read and passed to System.setProperty() at Tomcat bootstrap time.
Disclaimer: While it is convenient to use catalina.properties, the recommended way is to use -D in CATALINA_OPTS and JAVA_OPTS.
You may try running with a debugger,
https://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ/Developing#Debugging
It is odd that the error message is about invalid syntax, not about non-existing path. Is it possible to reproduce this message with a simple sample java program? Does a non-existent path produce a different error message?
Maybe you will succeed if you use straight slash '/' instead of backslash. Looking at the stacktrace, some API there is using URLs (FileURLConnection). It may be that straight slashes will work better.
It may be that the message is actually provided by underlying OS, not by Java code. If such, it may be a fixed message that the OS provides as explanation to a numeric error code. If that is the case, its text may be trying hard to cover all cases when some specific numeric error code is used. (Just guessing)