diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/Util.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/Util.java
index b7d76ca56a1a19c0709bc939648c4c4c313fc00a..412ab84d92ff207334562169f5f2157b201e8150 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/Util.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/Util.java
@@ -57,6 +57,7 @@ import java.io.InputStream;
 import java.io.OutputStream;
 import java.io.OutputStreamWriter;
 import java.io.Reader;
+import java.io.StringReader;
 import java.io.Writer;
 import java.io.PrintStream;
 import java.io.InputStreamReader;
@@ -81,6 +82,7 @@ import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Locale;
 import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.MissingResourceException;
+import java.util.Properties;
 import java.util.ResourceBundle;
 import java.util.SimpleTimeZone;
 import java.util.StringTokenizer;
@@ -1162,6 +1164,24 @@ public class Util {
         return s==null ? s : s.intern();
     }
 
+    /**
+     * Loads a key/value pair string as {@link Properties}
+     * @since 1.392
+     */
+    @IgnoreJRERequirement
+    public static Properties loadProperties(String properties) throws IOException {
+        Properties p = new Properties();
+        try {
+            p.load(new StringReader(properties));
+        } catch (NoSuchMethodError e) {
+            // load(Reader) method is only available on JDK6.
+            // this fall back version doesn't work correctly with non-ASCII characters,
+            // but there's no other easy ways out it seems.
+            p.load(new ByteArrayInputStream(properties.getBytes()));
+        }
+        return p;
+    }
+
     public static final FastDateFormat XS_DATETIME_FORMATTER = FastDateFormat.getInstance("yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss'Z'",new SimpleTimeZone(0,"GMT"));
 
     // Note: RFC822 dates must not be localized!
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/ArgumentListBuilder.java b/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/ArgumentListBuilder.java
index 247378cb4378703c7ad09f419fd9b7795225ccf4..8d41ba2ea5c7161aa9cf2ceaf75d3b1789c95751 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/ArgumentListBuilder.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/hudson/util/ArgumentListBuilder.java
@@ -35,13 +35,9 @@ import java.util.Properties;
 import java.util.Map.Entry;
 import java.io.Serializable;
 import java.io.File;
-import java.io.StringReader;
-import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.Set;
 
-import org.jvnet.animal_sniffer.IgnoreJRERequirement;
-
 /**
  * Used to build up arguments for a process invocation.
  *
@@ -194,7 +190,7 @@ public class ArgumentListBuilder implements Serializable {
     public ArgumentListBuilder addKeyValuePairsFromPropertyString(String prefix, String properties, VariableResolver vr) throws IOException {
         if(properties==null)    return this;
 
-        for (Entry<Object,Object> entry : load(properties).entrySet()) {
+        for (Entry<Object,Object> entry : Util.loadProperties(properties).entrySet()) {
             addKeyValuePair(prefix, (String)entry.getKey(), Util.replaceMacro(entry.getValue().toString(),vr), false);
         }
         return this;
@@ -218,26 +214,12 @@ public class ArgumentListBuilder implements Serializable {
     public ArgumentListBuilder addKeyValuePairsFromPropertyString(String prefix, String properties, VariableResolver vr, Set<String> propsToMask) throws IOException {
         if(properties==null)    return this;
 
-        for (Entry<Object,Object> entry : load(properties).entrySet()) {
+        for (Entry<Object,Object> entry : Util.loadProperties(properties).entrySet()) {
             addKeyValuePair(prefix, (String)entry.getKey(), Util.replaceMacro(entry.getValue().toString(),vr), (propsToMask == null) ? false : propsToMask.contains((String)entry.getKey()));
         }
         return this;
     }
 
-    @IgnoreJRERequirement
-    private Properties load(String properties) throws IOException {
-        Properties p = new Properties();
-        try {
-            p.load(new StringReader(properties));
-        } catch (NoSuchMethodError e) {
-            // load(Reader) method is only available on JDK6.
-            // this fall back version doesn't work correctly with non-ASCII characters,
-            // but there's no other easy ways out it seems.
-            p.load(new ByteArrayInputStream(properties.getBytes()));
-        }
-        return p;
-    }
-
     public String[] toCommandArray() {
         return args.toArray(new String[args.size()]);
     }