It is impossible to start correctly a swarm when specifying a toolLocations argument with whitespaces (ie. jdk:C:/Program Files/Java/...).

The problem seems to come from :
swarm-plugin/client/src/main/java/hudson/plugins/swarm/SwarmClient.java, line 308.
swarm-plugin/plugin/src/main/java/hudson/plugins/swarm/PluginImpl.java, line 121.

which use " " as a separator for tools. As a consequence, the part after the whitespace is considered to be another tool (which is just the rest of the previous one), and throw RuntimeException because it is not recognized.

IMO, the solution would either be :

• change the splitting character (ie. tool1:location@tool2:location). Quick win.
• use a more complex structure for data sent from client to plugin than just raw text and simple separators.