(I heard that on Windows systems, it is often the case that the prefix contains spaces. I believe that on GNU/Linux systems, the only forbidden characters in file paths are the slash -used as directory separator- and the null character, putting spaces, asterisks, question marks, newlines or tabulations in file names is very bad taste but probably possible.).
Right, in windows, it is NOT considered bad taste to have spaces in file names, and in some circumstances like "Program Files" it is quite normal. Such spaces have been a continued source of bugs in all kinds of software including some of Microsoft development tools.
