It appears that if JBOSS_HOME contains a space (e.g. jboss 4.0.1sp1), deployment of an exploded rar file fails while parsing the ra.xml file. If this same rar is not exploded the error does not occur. The following is the stack trace from the console output...

11:43:09,127 ERROR [MainDeployer] Could not initialise deployment: file:/C:/jboss 4.0.1sp1/server/default/deploy/default-license-rar-10.0.24.0.rar/
org.jboss.deployment.DeploymentException: Error parsing meta data file:/C:/jboss 4.0.1sp1/server/default/deploy/default-license-rar-10.0.24.0.rar/META-INF/ra.xml; - nested throwable: (org.jboss.xml.binding.JBossXBException: Failed to parse document file:/C:/jboss 4.0.1sp1/server/default/deploy/default-license-rar-10.0.24.0.rar/META-INF/ra.xml)
at org.jboss.deployment.DeploymentException.rethrowAsDeploymentException(DeploymentException.java:39)
at org.jboss.deployment.SimpleSubDeployerSupport.parseMetaData(SimpleSubDeployerSupport.java:217)
at org.jboss.deployment.SimpleSubDeployerSupport.init(SimpleSubDeployerSupport.java:102)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.init(MainDeployer.java:828)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:765)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:738)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor43.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:144)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:80)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.AbstractInterceptor.invoke(AbstractInterceptor.java:122)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:74)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ModelMBeanOperationInterceptor.invoke(ModelMBeanOperationInterceptor.java:131)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:74)
at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:249)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:642)
at org.jboss.mx.util.MBeanProxyExt.invoke(MBeanProxyExt.java:177)
at $Proxy8.deploy(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.URLDeploymentScanner.deploy(URLDeploymentScanner.java:305)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.URLDeploymentScanner.scan(URLDeploymentScanner.java:481)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.AbstractDeploymentScanner$ScannerThread.doScan(AbstractDeploymentScanner.java:204)
at org.jboss.deployment.scanner.AbstractDeploymentScanner.startService(AbstractDeploymentScanner.java:277)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceMBeanSupport.jbossInternalStart(ServiceMBeanSupport.java:272)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceMBeanSupport.jbossInternalLifecycle(ServiceMBeanSupport.java:222)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor2.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:144)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:80)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:72)
at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:249)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:642)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceController$ServiceProxy.invoke(ServiceController.java:891)
at $Proxy0.start(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.system.ServiceController.start(ServiceController.java:416)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor9.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:144)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:80)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:72)
at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:249)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:642)
at org.jboss.mx.util.MBeanProxyExt.invoke(MBeanProxyExt.java:177)
at $Proxy4.start(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.deployment.SARDeployer.start(SARDeployer.java:261)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.start(MainDeployer.java:964)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:775)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:738)
at org.jboss.deployment.MainDeployer.deploy(MainDeployer.java:722)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ReflectedDispatcher.invoke(ReflectedDispatcher.java:144)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.dispatch(Invocation.java:80)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.AbstractInterceptor.invoke(AbstractInterceptor.java:122)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:74)
at org.jboss.mx.interceptor.ModelMBeanOperationInterceptor.invoke(ModelMBeanOperationInterceptor.java:131)
at org.jboss.mx.server.Invocation.invoke(Invocation.java:74)
at org.jboss.mx.server.AbstractMBeanInvoker.invoke(AbstractMBeanInvoker.java:249)
at org.jboss.mx.server.MBeanServerImpl.invoke(MBeanServerImpl.java:642)
at org.jboss.mx.util.MBeanProxyExt.invoke(MBeanProxyExt.java:177)
at $Proxy5.deploy(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.system.server.ServerImpl.doStart(ServerImpl.java:413)
at org.jboss.system.server.ServerImpl.start(ServerImpl.java:310)
at org.jboss.Main.boot(Main.java:162)
at org.jboss.Main$1.run(Main.java:423)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
Caused by: org.jboss.xml.binding.JBossXBException: Failed to parse document file:/C:/jboss 4.0.1sp1/server/default/deploy/default-license-rar-10.0.24.0.rar/META-INF/ra.xml
at org.jboss.xml.binding.parser.xni.XniJBossXBParser.parse(XniJBossXBParser.java:181)
at org.jboss.xml.binding.Unmarshaller.unmarshal(Unmarshaller.java:109)
at org.jboss.xml.binding.Unmarshaller.unmarshal(Unmarshaller.java:125)
at org.jboss.deployment.SimpleSubDeployerSupport.parseMetaData(SimpleSubDeployerSupport.java:213)
... 68 more
Caused by: java.io.FileNotFoundException: C:\jboss%204.0.1sp1\server\default\deploy\default-license-rar-10.0.24.0.rar\META-INF\ra.xml
at org.jboss.net.protocol.file.FileURLConnection.connect(FileURLConnection.java:71)
at org.jboss.net.protocol.file.FileURLConnection.getInputStream(FileURLConnection.java:80)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.setupCurrentEntity(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.startEntity(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityManager.startDocumentEntity(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.setInputSource(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DTDConfiguration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DTDConfiguration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.jboss.xml.binding.parser.xni.XniJBossXBParser.parse(XniJBossXBParser.java:177)
... 71 more