Luis:
You put your war files in
..\webapps folder.
Since you said you did that,
you should be able to access your web application.(even though you may not see the exploded directory structure under ..\webapps folder).
Second, if unpacking is not happening is your concern, then there is an attribute called
unpackWARs for the
Host element in the server.xml file. It takes boolean values. Make sure it is set to
true for whatever Service element you're interested in.
FYI, if the war was packed properly, you should be able to access your web application, without exploded directory structure.