Spaces in file path preventing image load

Question

Hi all,
I've got a problem: after installing Java 1.4 on Windows 2000, some of my image loading code stopped working--but only under very specific conditions (the code in question follows the post).
If you run an applet locally, AND the applet is accessing the class files in an archive (a ZIP file, in my case), AND the path to the html file that references the applet contains spaces, the Java plug-in can't find any images (using the default Toolkit's 'getImage' method).
For example, if I launch "c:/projects/slide_test/slide.htm", everything works great, but if I launch "c:/projects/slide test/slide.htm", the images won't load (assuming the .class files exist in an archive in both cases).
Similarly, if I launch "c:/projects/slide test/slide.htm" but leave the .class files unzipped and in the "slide test" directory, everything works fine.
The code works great using the Microsoft JVM and worked well under JRE 1.3_0x.
Has anyone else encountered and/or solved this problem?
Thanks in advance for any help or comments.
Here's the image loading code, though I stress it's been working great up to Java 1.4:
try {
    this.image = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getImage(imageURL);
    try {
        tracker = new MediaTracker(parentApplet);
        tracker.addImage(this.image, 0);
        try {
            tracker.waitForID(0);
            this.iWidth = this.image.getWidth(null);
            this.iHeight = this.image.getHeight(null);
        catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.print("Failed to track image.\n");
    catch (Exception e) {
        System.out.print("applet not yet initialized.\n");
catch(Exception e) {
    System.out.print("Failed to data for bitmap " + imageURL.toString() + "\n");

Answer 1

Hey Safir,
Thanks for the post. Unfortunately, that didn't fix the problem. I tried reforming the URL using "\ " and " " (in place of the '%20' that Java automatically substitutes), but the problem persists.
Given that the code works as is until you try to access the class files from an archive, I think there's something deeper at work.
Thanks again.
Kreitler