I am developing a command line application which requires certain properties at startup time. I tried to set those properties in the properties dialog of the project in tab "Run". But they are recognised only once. Any subsequent invocation of a test ignores those settings. The same applies for settings of the surefire plugin. They are ignored. I have set a system property (user.timezone) which is not recognised by netbeans but works on the command line (maven invocation).

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.5</version>
                <configuration>
                    <systemPropertyVariables>
                        <user.timezone>GMT</user.timezone>
                    </systemPropertyVariables>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>