[Windows 64] Brackets in system path wrecking havoc with JRuby ?

Question

Hi all,

I have a Win 64 bit laptop with Netbeans 6.7rc3, and I'm setting up and the Rails app I'm using still uses Rails 2.1.2 => have to install another version of Rails.

There seems to be no way to do this under Netbeans 6.7rc3 so I tried at the command line but it comes up with an error suggesting Jruby can't cope with brackets in the windows system PATH variable.

Unfortunately under Windows 64 bit (Vista, Win7) all the 32 bit apps are under c:\program files (x86). Eeesh.

Short of reinstalling everything in the path to somewhere else (may not be possible), or buying a Mac, any other suggestions? I tried changing the reg key ProgramFilesx86 to point to a renamed folder 'ProgramFilesx86' but there are thousands of references to Program Files (x86) in the registry and it all went to hell (couldn't launch regedit, needed to boot in safe mode, bag of laughs, etc)

Thoughts?

thanks!